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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


FROM   THE    LIBRARY   OF 

DR.  JOSEPH   LECONTE. 

GIFT  OF  MRS.   LECONTE. 

No. 


•7B  ' 


faj-0u4GL  &3<il{ 


MANUAL 


OF 


SUPPLEMENTARY  REFERENCES 


TO   THE 


COURSE  OF  LECTURES 


UPON 


MORAL    PHILOSOPHY, 

DELIYERb  BEFORE  THE  JUNIOR  CLASS 

OF  THE 

SOUTH  CAEOLINA  COLLEGE. 


n,          ^ 

Generosa  res  est — conari  alta,  tentare  et  mente  majora  concipere,  quam  qua 
etiam  ingenti  animo  adornatis  effici  possiut. — Seneca,  de   Vita  beat  a,  c»  zx. 


COLUMBIA,  S.  C.: 

SOUTHERN  aUARDIAN  STEAM  PBESS. 

1859. 


The  object  of  this  unpretending  brochure  is  two  fold  ;  to  dispense  with  long, 
but  valuable  quotations  in  a  Course  of  oral  instruction,  and  to  furnish  the  student 
of  Morals  with  a  text  book  for  private  study  and  class-room  exercise.  But  beyond 
the  attainment  of  these  objects  the  compiler  indulges  the  further  hope,  that  the 
extracts  here  furnished,  may  excite  such  interest  and  desire  for  knowledge  in  the 
mind  of  the  student  that  he  will  not  be  satisfied  until  he  has  himself  gone  to  the 
fountain  heads  of  Wisdom  and  Truth,  and  there  quenched  his  thirst. 
COLLKGB  CAMPUS,  Sept.  1st.,  1859. 


PLAN 

OF  THE 

COURSE  OF  LECTURES 

UPOX 

MORAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


(I.)    Introductory  Lecture. 

(II.)   History  of  Moral  Philosophy. 

(in.)  Criticism  of  Theories  of  Morals. 

(IV.)  Moral  Philosophy  Proper — Theoretical  Part. 

(V.)    Practical  Morals. 


(I.)  Introductory  Lecture 

(Jpon  the  design,  scope  and  dignity  of  Moral  Philosophy — the  difficulties  of 
instruction  in  a  Collegiate  Course— Text  Books  and  Books  of  Reference  to  be  used— 
and  some  useful  hints  for  prosecuting  the  study  advantageously. 


(LI.)  The  History  of  Moral  Philosophy, 

Chronologically  and  Biographicatty,  presented  with  a  view  to  familiarize  the 
mind  with  the  terms  and  controversies  of  the  science. 


(CL) 
ol  of 


School  of  Megara—  Cyrenaics—  Cynics—  Plato—  Aristotle—  Academics—  Stoics—  Epi- 
cureans —  Roman  Moralists  —  Cicero  —  Seneca  —  Plutarch's  Morals. 

(Z>.)  Christian  Ethics  or  Moral  Thtology.—  Christ  and  the  Apostles—  the  Patris- 
tic notions  and  method  —  Asceticism—  Mysticism  —  Casuistry  —  Characteristics  of  the 
Moral  Theology  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

(c.)  Scholastic  Ethics,  A.  D.  874.—  Scotus  Erigena—Anselm—  Hildebert—  Abe- 


4:  MOEAL   PHILOSOPHY. 

lard— Peter  of  Lombardy— Alexander  of  Hales— Albertus  Magnus— Thos.  Aquinas- 
Duns  Scotus — William  of  Ockham— Laurentius  Valla — Vives — Erasmus — Melanc- 
thon — Corn.  Agrippa. 

Sporadic  Works  and  ^w^ors.— Soto— Suarez— Sepulveda— Montague— Char- 
ron —  Piccolomini — Campanella  —  Giordano  Bruno — Petrarch —  Perkins — Ames — 
Hall— Sanderson— Taylor. 

(d.)  Modern  Systems  of  Morals. — Netherland  Moralists — Grotius,  Geulincx, 
Spinoza. 

British  Moralists.— Hobbes,  More,  Cumberland,  Cudworth,  Locke,  Shaftesbury, 
Clarke,  Wollaston,  Mandeville.  Hutcheson,  Butler,  Balguy,  Warburton,  Gay,  Hart- 
ley,  Tucker,  Hume,  Price,  Smith,  Paley,  Gisborne,  Stewart,  Reid,  Brown,  Ferguson, 
Bentbam. 

French  Moralists. — De  la  Motte  le  Yayer,  Bossuet,  Fenelon,  Bayle,  Euet,  Roche- 
foucauld, Malebranche,  Diderot,  de  la  Mettrie,  Helvetius,  Rousseau,  Dalembert, 
Mablay. 

German  Moralists. — Leibnitz,  Canz,  Wolf,  Baumgarten  Crusius,  Meier,  Kant, 
Mendelsohn,  Garve,  Schmid,  Schleirnaacher,  Marheineke  de  Wette,  Platner,  Jacobi. 

(e.)  JJursory  glance  at  the  Sympathetic  developement  of  the  science  at  the  pre- 
sent time,  in  England,  France  and  America. — McCosh,  Whewell,  Cousin,  Jonffroy, 
Tbornwell,  Wayland. 


(III.)  Criticism  of  Theories  of  Morals : 

History  of  the  Systems  of  Moral  Philosophy,  presented  according  to  the  leading 
idea,  developed  and  criticised. 

Classification  of  Systems. — Theories  of  Dependent  Morality — Theories  of  Inde- 
pendent Morality — Theories  in  reference  to  the  Nature  and  Origin  of  our  Moral 
Perceptions — Theories  in  reference  to  the  Criterion  of  Morals. 

(a)  Theories  which  make  morality  dependent : 

(1)  Upon  consequences  beneficial  to  self—  Selfish  Theory. 

(2)  "  "         to  others— Disinterested  Theory. 

(3)  "  "        to  mankind  generally —  Utilitarian  Theory. 

(4)  Upon  the  Will  of  God. 

(5)  Upon  Law,  Education  and  Custom. 

(b)  Theories  which  make  Morals  independent  of  any  artificial  or  extraneous  prin- 
ciple, but  directly  referable  to    Cl«)    Reason— Rationalistic  Theory. 

(2.)    Sympathy  or  Sense — Sentimental  Theory. 
(3.)    Conscience — Conscience  Theory. 


(IT.)   Speculative  Morality— (W  Virtue,  Duty,  Right,  and  the  contrary.) 
Definitions  of  the  Science. 
Basis  of  System. 
Is  there  a  Conscience  ? 


MOKAL   PHILOSOPHY.  O 

What  is  its  Nature  and  Constitution  ? 

The  Laws  and  operations  of  Conscience. 

Of  Bappiness— of  Obligation— of  Merit  and  of  Demerit— of  Right  and  Wrong— 
of  Virtue  and  the  Virtues— of  Temperance,  Truth,  Benevolence,  Justice,  Piety, 
Humanity, 


(Y.)  Practical  Morality— (Qt  Virtues,  Duties,  Rights,  and  their  contraries.) 

(  as  an  animal )  . 

(A.)  self     J  [•  being, 

/    as  a  moral    \ 


I    Family 


Fellowmen  •{ 


Duties  to  *  . 

Ecclesiastic 


(G.)  Superior  Being  —  God. 

t  T->  \     r   J!     •         n        i.-  \     B)'Ute8. 

(D.)  Interior  Creation  •(     r       .      . 

^     '      J  I    Inanimate  nature. 

(^4.)  (1.)     Duties  to  one's  self,  considered  as  possessed  of  an  animal  organization. 
(a.)    Self  preservation  —  of  Self  Defence,  of  Suicide. 
(£.)    Self  conservation  —  of  Frugality,  of  Drunkenness,  of  Gluttony. 
(c.)    Self  purification  —  of  Chastity,  of   Fornication,  of  Seduction,  of 

Gentility. 

(2.)    Duties  to  one's  self  considered  as  a  Moral  being. 
Of  Truth—  of  Lies. 
Of  Honor—  of  Duelling. 

Of  Self  command—  of  Anger  —  of  Resentment  —  of  Revenge. 
(B.)    Duties  to  Fellow  men. 
(1.)      Family  Relations. 

(a)     Of  Husband  and  Wife,  of  Adultery,  of  Polygamy,  of  Divorce. 
(5)     Of  Parent  and  Child. 

(c)  Of  Brethren. 

(d)  Of  Master  and  Servant. 

(e)  Of  Friendship. 

(/.)     Charity  in  deed—  of  Philanthropy,   of  Alms,  of  Hospitality,    of 

Gratitude. 
Charity  in  word—  of  Liberality  of  Judgment,  of  Detraction,  of 

Sneering. 

Charity  in  thought—  of  Sympathy,  of  Envy,  of  Malice. 
(2.)    Business  Relations—  (a)  Of  Buyer  and  Seller. 

(b)  Of  Promiser  and  Promisee. 

(c)  Of  Borrower  and  Lender. 

(d)  Of  Employer  and  Employee. 

(e)  Of  Principal  and  Agent. 
(/)  Of  Partners. 


MORAL   PHILOSOPHY. 

Morals  of  Trade.— Of  Gaming,  of  Speculation. 

Of  Wills— of  Insurances. 

(3.)    Political  Relations.— Of  Property,  of  Gorernment,  of   Laws,  of  Crimes, 
of  Patriotism,  of  Slavery,  of  Elections. 

(4.)     Of  Ecclesiastical  relations  generally. 

(C.)    Duty  to  God.— Of  Love,  of  Worship,  of  Prayer,  of  Oaths,  of  Vows,  of 
Sabbatical  Institutions. 

(D.)    Duties  to  JBrute  and  Inanimate  Creation. 
To  Brutes.— Of  Humanity— of  Cruelty. 

To  Inanimate  Creation. — Use  and  not  Waste— of  cultivation  of  the  Arts 
and  Sciences — of  ^Esthetic  tastes  and  their  connection  with  Morals. 


LIST  OF  EMINENT  MEN 

WHO.  HAVE 

CONTRIBUTED    TO    MORAL    SCIENCE. 

ARRANGED  IN  CHRONOLOGICAL  ORDER. 


B.  C. 

A.  D. 

584-504        Pythagoras, 

1224-1274 

Thomas  Aquinas, 

500         Heraclitus,   flo. 

1245 

Alexander  of  Hales, 

467-398         Socrates, 

1274 

Bonaventura, 

426-347        Plato, 

1309 

Duns  Scotus, 

384-321        Aristotle  &  Pyrrho, 

1457 

Laurentius  Valla, 

342-270         Epicurus, 

1499 

Marcus  Ficinus, 

324            x    Diogenes, 

1518 

Melancthon, 

314-261         Zeno, 

1525 

Pomponatius, 

213-130         Carneades, 

1535 

Hem.  Corn.  Agrippa, 

122               ''Pancetius,  flourished 

1541 

Vives, 

108-44           Cicero, 

1494-1560 

Soto, 

i. 

1580 

Giordano  Bruno. 

A.  D.        L. 

x 

Montague, 

1-65               Seneca, 

1582 

Perkins,  flourished  , 

82                   Epictetus,  lived. 

1603 

Charron, 

99                   Plutarch, 

1604 

Piccolomini, 

162                 Marc.  Atonnius, 

1538-1617 

Suarez, 

170                 Sextus  Empiricus, 
250                 Plotinus, 

1639 
1585-1645 

Campanella, 
Grotius, 

270              /Porphyrus, 

1650 

Ames,  flourished, 

331                 Jamblichus, 

1660 

Bp.  Sanderson,  flo. 

485                 Proclus., 

tt 

Jeremy  Taylor,  flo. 

496             •'  Stobosus., 

1667 

Geulincx, 

550                 Simplicius, 

1672 

De  la  Motte  le  Vayer, 

874                 Scotus  Eugena, 

1677 

Spinoza, 

1034-1100     Anselm, 

1079-1143  >Abelard,  Hildebert, 
1150          /  Peter  Lombard, 

1588-1684 
1685 

xHobbes, 
-'  Henry  More, 

1173              Richard  of  St.  Victor, 

1617-1688 

Cudworth, 

1180               John  of  Salisbury, 

1691 

Horneius, 

1193-1280     Albertus  Magnus, 

1704 

^  Locke, 

8 


CONTKIBUTOKS   TO   MOEAL   PHILOSOPHY. 


A.  D. 

1627-1704    Bossuet, 
1706  Bayle, 

1671-1713     Shaftesbury, 
1651-1715     Fenelon, 
1638-1715     Malebranche, 
1646-1716  /Leibnitz, 
1632-1Z1&/  Cumberland, 
1724  Huet  and  Gay, 

1721  Wollaston, 

1728  Thomasius, 

1733  Mandeville, 

1661-1737     Buffier, 
1694-1747     Hutcheson, 
1692-1752     Butler, 

1753  Canz, 

1754  Christ'n.  Wolf, 
1757             ^Hartley  &  la  Mettrie, 
1703-1758/  Jon.  Edwards, 
1762         /    Baumgarten, 

1771  Helvetius, 


A.  D. 

1772  Crusius, 

1705-1774     Tucker, 
1711-1776     Hume, 

1778  /Meier, 

1779  Rosseau. 
1783  '            Dalembert, 

1785  Mably, 

1786  Mendelsohn, 
1723-1790     Smith, 
1723-1791     Price, 
1796              Reid, 

1798          /""Carve, 

1804  .Kant, 

1812  /Schmid, 

1814        /yFichte, 

1 743-18 fy'Paley  and  Gisborne, 

1816       /      Ferguson, 

1818  Plainer, 

1819  Jacobi, 
1778-1820     Brown. 


PART  I. 
HISTORY  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY, 


It  is  impossible  for  a  science  to  rest  in  ignorance  of  its  own  history;  it  is  impossible 
for  the  human  mind  to  permit  it.  However  clearly  it  may  be  demonstrated  in  its  own 
eyes,  a  science  cannot  have  perfect  confidence  in  itself,  unless  it  has  obtained  the  secret 
of  its  errors;  it  cannot  be  sure  that  it  has  arrived  at  the  True,  except  when  it  has  ex- 
plained  to  itself  how  it  has  passed  through,  and  how  it  must  have  needs  passed  through 
the  False. — Jouffroy. 

(1.)     ETHICAL  VIEWS  OF  PYTHAGORAS. 

The  Pythagoreans  were  the  first,  we  are  told  by  Aristotle, 
who  attempted  to  determine  any  points  in  moral  philosophy. 
All,  however,  on  this  subject  that  they  carried  out  scientifi- 
cally, and  without  dependence  on  their  general  view  of  things, 
was  of  little  value  apparently.  Whether  they  established  any 
doctrine  of  the  supreme  good,  or  the  ultimate  object  of  all 
rational  action,  is  very  doubtful ;  so  very  discrepant  are  the 
statements  of  later  writers  on  this  point :  that,  however,  they 
investigated  the  notion  of  virtue,  would  result  from  Philolaus 
having  denoted  virtue  to  be  the  property  of  the  moral  life. 
They  are  said  to  have  called  virtue  a  harmony  ;  which  defini- 
tion, however,  requires  to  be  further  limited,  by  shewing  in 
what  they  supposed  the  harmony  of  virtue  to  consist.  It  is 
not  improbable  that  they  held  it  to  be  the  coincidence  of  the 
rational  and  the  irrational  throughout  the  whole  course  of 
life.  For,  on  the  one  hand,  they  employed  music  both  to 
soothe  the  passions,  and  to  excite  the  active  energies.  On  the 
other,  they  strove  to  attain  to  a  consistency  and  agreement  in 
their  whole  life,  as  is  expressed  in  their  precept :  Man  ought 


10  HISTORY  OF  MORAL    PHILOSOPHY. 

to  consider  both  the  past  and  the  future  with  a  moral  aim. 
"What,  it  is  said,  they  taught  of  particular  virtues,  is  for  the 
most  part  questionable  or  worthless ;  in  the  case  of  justice 
alone  are  we  credibly  informed  that  they  said  it  was  a  "  simi- 
larly similar  number ;"  by  which  they  meant  to  convey  the 
maxim,  that  it  is  just  that  every  one  should  receive  according 
to  his  deserts.  No  one  will  wonder  to  find  so  rude  a  notion 
in  the  infancy  of  ethics.  Hitters  History  of  Ancient  Phi- 
losophy',  vol.  1.,  p.  414. 

(2.)     CHARACTER  AND  METHOD  OF  SOCRATES'  PHILOSOPHIZING. 

The  philosophizing  of  Socrates  was  limited  and  restricted 
by  his  opposition,  partly  to  the  preceding,  and  partly  to  the 
Sophistic  philosophy. 

Philosophy  before  th^  Socrates  ,had  been  in  its  essential 
character, investigation  of  nature.  But  in  Socrates,  the  hu- 
man mind,  for  the  first  time,  turned  itself  in  upon  itself,  upon 
its  own  being,  and  that  too  in  the  most  immediate  manner, 
by  conceiving  itself  as  active,  moral  spirit.  The  positive  phi- 
losophizing of  Socrates,  is  exclusively  of  an  ethical  character, 
exclusively  an  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  virtue,  so  exclusively, 
and  so  one-sidedly,  that,  as  is  wont  to  be  the  case  upon  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  new  principle,  it  even  expressed  a  contempt 
for  the  striving  of  the  entire  previous  period,  with  its  natural 
philosophy,  and  its  mathematics.  Setting  everything  under 
the  stand  point  of  immediate  moral  law,  Socrates  was  so  far 
from  finding  any  object  in  "irrational"  nature  worthy  of 
study,  that  he  rather,  in  a  kind  of  general  teleological  manner, 
conceived  it  simply  in  the  light  of  external  means  for  the  at- 
tainment of  external  ends  ;  yea,  he  would  not  even  go  out  to 
walk,  as  he  says  in  the  Phrsedrus  of  Plato,  since  one  can  learn 
nothing  from  trees  and  districts  of  country.  Self-knowledge 
the  Delphic  (yvs&i  tfeau<rov)  appeared  to  him  the  only  object 
worthy  of  a  man,  as  the  starting  point  of  all  philosophy. 


HISTORY  OF  MORAL    PHILOSOPHY.  11 

Knowledge  of  every  other  kind,  he  pronounced  so  insignifi- 
cant and  worthless,  that  he  was  wont  to  boast  of  ignorance, 
and  to  declare  that  he  excelled  other  men  in  wisdom  only  in 
this,  that  he  was  conscious  of  his  own  ignorance.  (Plat.  Ap. 
S.  21,  23.) 

The  other  side  of  the  Socratic  philosophizing,  is  its  opposi- 
tion to  the  philosophy  of  the  time.  His  object,  as  is  well 
understood,  could  have  been  only  this,  to  place  himself  upon 
the  same  position  as  that  occupied  by  the  philosophy  of  the 
Sophists,  and  overcome  it  on  its  own  ground,  and  by  its  own 
principles.  That  Socrates  shared  in  the  general  position  of 
the  Sophists,  and  even  had  many  features  of  external  resem- 
blance to  them — the  Socratic  irony,  for  instance — has  been 
remarked  above.  Many  of  his  assertions,  particularly  these 
propositions,  that  no  man  knowingly  does  wrong,  and  if  a  man 
were  knowingly  to  lie,  or  to  do  some  other  wrong  act,  still  he 
would  be  better  than  he  who  should  do  the  same  unconscious- 
ly, at  first  sight  bear  a  purely  Sophistic  stamp.  The  great  fun- 
damental thought  of  the  Sophistic  philosophy,  that  all  moral 
acting  must  be  a  conscious  act,  was  also  his.  But  whilst  the 
Sophists  made  it  their  object,  through  subjective  reflection  to 
confuse  and  to  break  up  all  stable  convictions,  to  make 
all  rules  relating  to  outward  conduct  impossible,  Socrates 
had  recognized  thinking  as^  the  activity  of  the  universal 
principle,  free,  objective  thought  as  the  measure  of  all  things, 
and,  therefore,  instead  of  referring  moral  duties,  and  all  mor- 
al action  to  the  fancy  and  caprice  of  the  individual,  had  rath- 
er referred  all  to  true  knowledge,  to  the  essence  of  spirit.  It 
was  this  idea  of  knowledge  that  led  him  to  seek,  by  the  process 
of  thought,  to  gain  a  conceivable  objective  ground,  something 
real,  abiding,  absolute,  independent  of  the  arbitrary  volitions 
of  the  subject,  and  to  hold  fast  to  unconditioned  moral  laws. 

The  Socratic  method  has  a  twofold  side,  a  negative  and  a 
positive  one.  The  negative  side  is  the  well  known  Socratic 


12  HISTORY  OF  MOKAL    PHILOSOPHY. 

irony.  The  philosopher  takes  the  attitude  of  ignorance,  and 
would  apparently  let  himself  be  instructed  by  those  with 
whom  he  converses,  but  through  the  questions  which  he  puts, 
the  unexpected  consequences  which  he  deduces,  and  the  con- 
tradictions in  which  he  involves  the  opposite  party,  he  soon 
leads  them  to  see  that  their  supposed  knowledge  would  only 
entangle  and  confuse  them.  In  the  embarrassment  in  which 
they  now  find  themselves  placed,  and  seeing  that  they  do  not 
know  what  they  supposed,  this  supposed  knowledge  com- 
pletes its  own  destruction,  and  the  subject  who  had  pretended 
to  wisdom  learns  to  distrust  his  previous  opinions  and  firmly 
held  notions.  "  What  we  knew,  has  contradicted  itself,"  is 
the  refrain  of  the  most  of  these  conversations. 

This  result  of  the  Socratic  method  was  only  to  lead  the  sub- 
ject to  know  that  he  knew  nothing,  and  a  great  part  of  the 
dialogues  of  Xenophon  and  Plato  go  no  further  than  to  repre- 
sent ostensibly  this  negative  result.  But  there  is  yet  another 
element  in  his  method  in  which  the  irony  loses  its  negative 
appearance. 

The  positive  side  of  the  Socratic  method  is  the  so-called 
obsterics  or  art  of  intellectual  midwifery.  Socrates  compares 
himself  with  his  mother  Phsenarete,  a  midwife,  because  his 
position  was  rather  to  help  others  bring  forth  thoughts  than 
to  produce  them  himself,  and  because  he  took  upon  himself 
to  distinguish  the  birth  of  an  empty  thought  from  one  rich  in 
its  content.  (Plato  Theatcetus,  p.  149.)  Through  this  art  of 
midwifery  the  philosopher,  by  his  assiduous  questioning,  by 
his  interrogatory  dissection  of  the  notions  of  him  with  whom 
he  might  be  conversing,  knew  how  to  elicit  from  him  a 
thought  of  which  he  had  previously  been  unconscious,  and 
how  to  help  him  to  the  birth  of  a  new  thought.  A  chief 
means  in  this  operation  was  the  method  of  induction,  or  the 
leading  of  the  representation  to  a  conception.  The  philosopher, 
thus,  starting  from  some  individual,  concrete  case,  and  seiz- 


HISTORY  OF  MORAL    PHILOSOPHY.  13 

\ 

ing  hold  of  the  most  common  notions  concerning  it,  and  find- 
ing illustrations  in  the  most  ordinary  and  trivial  occurrences, 
knew  how  to  remove  by  his  comparisons  that  which  was 
individual,  and  by  thus  separating  the  accidental  and 
contingent  from  the  essential,  could  bring  up  to  conscious, 
ness  a  universal  truth  and  a  universal  determination — in 
other  words,  could  form  conceptions.  In  order  e.  g.  to 
find  the  conception  of  justice  or  valor,  he  would  start 
from  individual  examples  of  them,  and  from  these  deduce 
the  universal  character  or  conception  of  these  virtues.  From 
this  we  see  that  the  direction  of  the  Socratic  induction  was  to 
gain  logical  definitions.  I  define  a  conception  when  I  devel- 
ope  what  it  is,  its  essence,  its  content.  I  define  the  concep- 
tion of  justice  when  I  set  up  the  common  property  and  logi- 
cal unity  of  all  its  different  modes  of  manifestation.  Socrates 
sought  to  go  no  farther  than  this.  "  To  seek  for  the  essence  of 
virtue,"  says  an  Aristotelian  writing  (Eth.  1.  5,)  "  Socrates 
regarded  as  the  problem  of  philosophy,  and  hence,  since  he 
regarded  all  virtue  as  a  knowing,  he  sought  to  determine  in 
respect  of  justice  or  valor  what  they  might  really  be,  i.  e.  he 
investigated  their  essence  or  conception."  From  this  it  is 
very  easy  to  see  the  connection  which  his  practical  strivings. 
He  went  back  to  the  conception  of  every  individual  virtue,  e. 
g.  justice,  only  because  he  was  convinced  that  the  knowledge 
of  this  conception,  the  knowledge  of  it  for  every  individual 
case,  was  the  surest  guide  for  every  moral  relation.  Every 
moral  action,  he  believed,  should  start  as  a  conscious  action 
from  the  conception.  Schwegler's  History  of  Philos,  Ameri- 
can edition,  p.  62. 

(3.)    PLATO'S  OPINION  OF  VIRTUE. 

It  consists  according  to  men  in  that  state  of  mind  in  which 
every  faculty,  confines  itself  within  its  proper  sphere  without 
encroaching  upon  that  of  any  other,  and  performed  its  proper 


14  HISTORY   OF  MORAL    PHILOSOPHY. 

office  with  that  precise  degree  of  strength  and  vigor  which 
belongs  to  it.     Adam  Smith's  Moral  Sent.,  p.  479. 

Virtue  he  represented  as  the  harmony  of  the  whole  soul  ;— 
as  a  peace  between  all  its  principles  and  desires,  assigning  to 
each  as  much  space  as  they  can  occupy  without  encroaching 
on  each  other  ; — as  a  state  of  perfect  health,  in  which  every 
function  was  performed  with  ease,  pleasure,  and  vigor  ; — as  a 
well-ordered  commonwealth,  where  the  obedient  passions 
executed  with  energy  the  laws  and  commands  of  reason.  The 
vicious  mind  presented  the  odious  character,  sometimes  of 
discord,  of  war ; — sometimes  of  disease  ; — always  of  passions 
warring  with  each  other  in  eternal  anarchy.  Consistent  with 
himself,  and  at  peace  with  his  fellows,  the  good  man  felt  in 
the  quiet  of  his  conscience  a  foretaste  of  the  approbation  of 
God.  Mackintoshes  Ethical  Diss.,  p.  1%. 

(4.)     OPINIONS  OF  ARISTOTLE  UPON  VIRTUE. 

Virtue,  according  to  Aristotle,  consists  in  the  habit  of 
mediocrity  according  to  right  reason.  Every  particular  vir- 
tue, according  to  him,  lies  in  a  kind  of  middle,  between  two 
opposite  vices,  of  which  the  one  offends  from  being  too  much, 
the  other  from  being  too  little  affected  by  a  particular  species 
of  objects.  Thus  the  virtue  of  fortitude  or  courage  lies  in  the 
middle  between  the  opposite  vices  of  cowardice  and  of  pre- 
sumptuous rashness,  of  which  the  one  offends  from  being  too 
much,  and  the  other  from  being  too  little  affected  by  the  ob- 
^.  jects  of  fear. 

According  to  Aristotle,  indeed,  virtue  did  not  so  much 
consist  in  those  moderate  and  right  affections,  as  in  the  habit 
of  this  moderation.  In  order  to  understand  this,  it  is  to  be 
observed,  that  virtue  may  be  considered  either  as  the  quality 
of  an  action,  or  as  the  quality  of  a  person.  Considered  as  the 
quality  of  an  action,  it  consists,  even  according  to  Aristotle, 
in  the  reasonable  moderation  of  the  affection  from  which  the 


HISTORY   OF   MORAL    PHILOSOPHY.  15 

action  proceeds,  whether  this  disposition  be  habitual  to  the 
person  or  not.  Considered  as  the  quality  of  a  person,  it  con- 
sists in  the  habit  of  this  reasonable  moderation,  in  its  having 
become  the  customary  and  usual  disposition  of  the  mind. 
Adam  Smith's  Moral  Sentiments,  p.  479. 

ARISTOTLE'S  VIEW  OF  HAPPINESS. 

His  fundamental  notion  is,  that  happiness  consists  in  virtu- 
ous energies — that  it  is  not  mere  pleasure  from  the  possession 
of  an  object  congruous  to  our  desires.  That  is  good  only  in  a 
very  subordinate  sense,  which  simply  ministers  to  enjoyment. 
The  chief  good  must  be  something  pursued  exclusively  for  its 
own  sake,  and  never  for  the  sake  of  anything  else ;  it  can 
never  be  used  as  an  instrument ;  it  must  be  perfect  and  self- 
sufficient.  What,  thon,  is  the  highest  good  of  man  ?  To  an- 
swer this  question,  says  Aristotle,  we  must  understand  the 
proper  business  of  man,  as  man.  As  there  is  a  work  which 
pertains  to  the  musician,  the  statuary,  the  artist,  which 
constitutes  the  good  or  end  of  his  profession,  so  there  must  be 
some  work  which  belongs  to  man,  not  as  an  individual,  not 
as  found  in  such  and  such  circumstances  and  relations,  but 
belongs  to  him  absolutely  as  man.  Now,  what  is  this  ?  It 
must  be  something  which  springs  from  the  peculiarities  of  his 
nature,  and  which  he  cannot  share  with  the  lower  orders  of 
being.  It  cannot,  therefore,  be  life, — for  plants  have  that; 
neither  can  it  be  the  pleasures  of  sensitive  existence,  for  brutes 
have  them.  It  must  be  sought  in  the  life  of  a  being  possessed 
of  reason  ;  and  as  that  can  be  contemplated  in  a  two-fold  as- 
pect, either  as  a  state,  or  as  an  exercise  ;  as  the  possession  of 
faculties,  or  the  putting  forth  of  their  activities ;  we  must 
pitch  upon  the  most  important,  which  is  activity  or  energy, 
or  as  he  also  styles  it,  obedience  to  reason.  Energy,  there- 
fore, according  to  reason,  is  characteristic  of  man.  This  is 
his  business,  and  he  who  pursues  it  best,  is  the  best  man, 


16  HISTORY   OF  MORAL    PHILOSOPHY. 

Human  good,  or  the  good  of  man  as  man,  is  consequently 
energy  according  to  the  best  and  most  perfect  virtue.  Thorn- 
weWs  Discourses  upon  Truth,  p.  27. 

(5.)     SYSTEM  OF  THE  EPICUREANS. 

The  fundamental  principle  of  the  Epicurean  system  was, 
that  bodily  pleasure  and  pain  were  the  sole  ultimate  objects  of 
desire  and  aversion.  These  were  desired  and  shunned  on  their 
own  account ;  everything  else  from  its  tendency  to  procure 
the  one  of  these  or  to  save  us  from  the  other.  Power,  (for 
example,)  riches,  reputation,  even  the  virtues  themselves, 
were  not  desirable  for  their  own  sake,  but  were  valuable 
merely  as  being  instrumental  to  procure  us  the  objects  of  our 
natural  desires.  "  They  who  place  the  sovereign  good  in  vir- 
tue alone,  and  who,  dazzled  by  words,  overlook  the  intentions 
of  nature,  will  be  delivered  from  this  greatest  of  all  errors  if 
they  will  only  listen  to  Epicurus.  As  to  these  rare  and  excel- 
lent qualities  on  which  you  set  so  high  a  value,  who  is  there 
that  would  consider  them  as  objects  either  of  praise  or  of 
imitation,  unless  from  a  belief  that  they  are  instrumental  in 
adding  to  the  sum  of  our  pleasures  ?  For  as  we  prize  the 
medical  art,  not  on  its  own  account,  but  as  subservient  to  the 
preservation  of  health,  and  the  art  of  the  pilot,  not  for  the 
skill  he  displays,  but  as  it  diminishes  the  dangers  of  naviga- 
tion, so  also  wisdom,  which  is  the  art  of  living,  would  be 
coveted  by  none  if  it  were  altogether  unprofitable,  whereas, 
now,  it  is  an  object  of  general  pursuit,  from  a  persuasion  that 
it  both  guides  us  to  our  best  enjoyments,  and  points  out  to  us 
the  most  effectual  means  for  their  attainment."  Cic.  defini- 
lus,p.  13. 

All  the  pleasures  and  pains  of  the  mind  (according  to  Epi- 
curus) are  derived  from  the  recollection  and  anticipation  of 
bodily  pleasures  and  pains ;  but  this  recollection  and  antici- 
pation he  considered  as  contributing  much  more  to  our  hap- 


HISTORY    OF    HORAT,    PHILOSOPHY.  17 

piness  or  misery  on  the  whole,  than  the  pleasures  and  pains 
themselves.  His  philosophy  was  indeed  directed  chiefly  to 
inculcate  this  truth,  and  to  withdraw  our  solicitude  from  the 
pleasures  and  pains  themselves  which  are  not  in  our  power, 
to  the  regulation  of  our  recollections  and  anticipations,  which 
depend  upon  ourselves.  He  placed  happiness,  therefore,  in 
ease  of  body  and  tranquility  of  mind,  but  much  more  in 
the  latter  than  in  the  former,  insomuch  that  he  affirmed  a 
wise  man  might  be  happy  in  the  midst  of  bodily  torments. 
The  system  of  Epicurus,  however,  (although  it  places 
morality  on  a  wrong  foundation,  and  employs  a  language 
with  respect  to  happiness  very  liable  to  abuse, — a  language 
which,  (as  Cicero  remarks  "savours  of  nothing  magnifi- 
cent, "nothing  generous,")  bears  at  least  very  honorable 
testimony  to  the  tendency  of  the  virtues  to  promote  hap- 
piness even  in  this  life,  since  he  imagined  it  was  from  this 
tendency  they  derived  all  their  value.  And  accordingly,  Mr. 
Smith  remarks,  that  Cicero,  the  great  enemy  of  the  Epicurean 
system,  borrows  from  it  his  most  agreeable  proofs,  that  virtue 
alone  is  sufficient  to  secure  happiness.  And  Seneca,  though 
a  Stoic,  the  sect  most  opposite  to  that  of  Epicurus,  yet  quotes 
this  philosopher  more  frequently  than  any  other."  Stewards 
Active  and  Moral  Powers. 

(6.)     SYSTEM  OF  THE  STOICS. 

In  opposition  to  the  Epicurean  doctrines  already  stated  on 
the  subject  of  happiness,  the  stoics  placed  the  supreme  good 
in  rectitude  of  conduct,  without  any  regard  to  the  event. 
They  did  not,  however,  as  has  been  often  supposed,  recom- 
mend an  indifference  to  external  objects,  or  a  life  of  inactivity 
and  apathy.  On  the  contrary,  they  taught  that  nature  pointed 
out  to  us  certain  objects  of  choice  and  of  rejection,  and 
amongst  these  some  to  be  more  chosen  and  avoided  than 
others ;  and  that  virtue  consisted  in  choosing  and  rejecting 

3 


18  HISTORY    OF    MORAL    PHILOSOPHY. 

objects  according  to  their  intrinsic  value.  They  admitted 
that  health  was  to  be  preferred  to  sickness,  riches  to  poverty ; 
the  prosperity  of  our  family,  of  our  friends,  of  our  country, 
to  their  adversity ;  and  they  allowed,  nay,  they  recommended, 
the  most  strenuous  exertions  to  accomplish  these  desirable 
ends.  They  only  contended  these  objects  should  be  pursued 
not  as  the  constituents  of  our  happiness,  but  because  we  be- 
lieve it  to  be  agreeable  to  nature  that  we  should  pursue  them  ; 
and  that,  therefore,  when  we  have  done  our  utmost,  we  should 
regard  the  event  as  indifferent. 

We  may  observe  farther,  in  favor  of  this  noble  system,  that 
the  scale  of  desirable  objects  which  it  exhibited  was  pecu- 
liarly calculated  to  encourage  the  social  virtues.  It  repre- 
sented indeed  (in  common  with  the  theory  of  Epicurus)  self- 
love  as  the  great  spring  of  human  actions  ;  but  in  the  appli- 
cation of  this  erroneous  principle  to  practice,  its  doctrines 
were  favorable  to  the  most  enlarged,  nay,  to  the  most  disin- 
terested benevolence.  It  taught  that  the  prosperity  of  two 
was  preferable  to  that  of  one ;  that  of  a  city  to  that  of  a 
family ;  and  that  of  our  country  to  all  partial  considerations. 
It  was  upon  this  very  principle,  added  to  a  sublime  sentiment 
of  piety,  that  it  founded  its  chief  argument  for  an  entire  resig- 
nation to  the  dispensations  of  Providence.  As  all  events  are 
ordered  by  perfect  wisdom  and  goodness,  the  stoics  conclu- 
ded, that  whatever  happens  is  calculated  to  produce  the 
greatest  good  possible  to  the  universe  in  general.  As  it  is 
agreeable  to  nature,  therefore,  that  we  should  prefer  the  hap- 
piness of  many  to  a  few,  and  of  all  to  that  of  many,  they 
concluded  that  every  event  which  happens  is  precisely  that 
which  we  ourselves  would  have  desired,  if  we  had  been  ac- 
quainted with  the  whole  scheme  of  the  Divine  administra- 
tion. Stewart's  Active  and  Moral  Powers. 


U&     " 


. 


HISTORY  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY.  19 

(7.)     CONTESTS  OF   THE  VARIOUS   SCHOOLS  OF  PHILOSOPHY   IN 

ROME. 


There  is  no  scene  in  history  so  memorable  as  that  in  which 
Csesar  mastered  a  nobility  of  which  Lucullus  and  Horten- 
sius,  Sulpicius  and  Catulus,  Pompey  and  Cicero,  Brutus  and 
Cato,  were  members.  This  renowned  body  had,  from  the 
time  of  Scipio,  sought  the  Greek  philosophy  as  an  amuse- 
ment or  an  ornament.  Some  few,  "  in  thought  more  elevate," 
caught  the  love  of  truth,  and  were  ambitious  of  discovering  a 
solid  foundation  for  the  Rule  of  Life.  The  influence  of  the 
Grecian  systems  was  tried  by  their  effect  on  a  body  of  men 
of  the  utmost  originality,  energy,  and  variety  of  character, 
during  the  five  centuries  between  Carneades  and  Constantine, 
in  their  successive  positions  of  rulers  of  the  world,  and  of 
slaves  under  the  best  and  under  the  worst  of  uncontrolled 
masters.  If  we  had  found  this  influence  perfectly  uniform, 
we  should  have  justly  suspected  our  own  love  of  system  of 
having  in  part  bestowed  that  appearance  on  it.  Had  there 
been  no  trace  of  such  an  influence  discoverable  in  so  great  an 
experiment,  we  must  have  acquiesced  in  the  paradox,  that 
opinion  does  not  at  all  affect  conduct.  The  result  is  the  more 
satisfactory,  because- it  appears  to  illustrate  general  tendency 
without  excluding  very  remarkable  exceptions.  Though  Cas- 
sius  was  an  Epicurean,  the  true  representative  of  that  school 
was  the  accomplished,  prudent,  friendly,  good-natured  time- 
server  Atticus,  the  pliant  slave  of  every  tyrant,  who  could 
kiss  the  hand  of  Antony,  imbrued  as  it  was  in  the  blood  of 
Cicero.  The  pure  school  of  Plato  sent  forth  Marcus  Brutus, 
the  signal  oi^humanity  of  whose  life  was  both  necessary  and 
sufficient  to  prove  that  his  daring  breach  of  venerable  rules 
flowed  only  from  that  dire  necessity  which  left  no  other  means 
of  upholding  the  most  sacred  principles.  The  Roman  orator, 
though  in  speculative  questions  he  embraced  that  mitigated 
doubt  which  allowed  most  ease  and  freedom  to  his  genius,  yet 


vvQw  , 

^  ^  ^    r/Vvv 

20  HISTORY    OF    MOKAL    PHILOSOPHY. 

in  those  moral  writings  where  his  heart  was  most  deeply  in- 
terested, followed  the  severest  sect  of  philosophy,  and  became 
almost  a  Stoic.  If  any  conclusion  may  be  hazarded  from  this 
trial  of  systems,  the  greatest  which  history  has  recorded,  we 
must  not  refuse  our  decided,  though  not  undistinguishing  pref- 
erence to  that  noble  school  which  preserved  great  souls  un- 
tainted at  the  court  of  dissolute  and  ferocious  tyrants  ;  which 
exalted  the  slave  of  one  of  Nero's  courtiers  to  be  a  moral 
teacher  of  aftertimes ;  which,  for  the  first,  and  hitherto  for 
the  only  time,  breathed  philosophy  and  justice  into  those  rules 
of  law  which  govern  the  ordinary  concerns  of  every  man ; 
and  which,  above  all,  has  contributed,  by  the  examples  of 
Marcus  Porcius  Cato,  and  of  Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus,  to 
raise  the  dignity  of  our  species,  to  keep  alive  a  more  ancient 
love  of  virtue,  and  a  more  lawful  sense  of  duty,  throughout  all 
generations.  Mackintoshes  Ethical  Diss. 

(8.)     OPINIONS  OF  ANSELM. 

(  The  highest  good  objectively  considered,  was,  according  to 
Anselm,  God  /  the  highest  subjectively  belonging  to  man  was 
the  knowledge  and  love  of  God.)  (The  ground  of  this  doctrine 
he  found  in  Human  Reason,  by  means  of  which  we  learned  to 
distinguish  and  to  love  the  good  above  the  evil,  the  higher 
above  the  lower,  and  the  highest  above  all  other  good  what- 
soever.. This  love  to  God  was  infinite  and  eternal,  because  God 
is  infinite  and  eternal,  and  on  account  of  this  love  he  concluded 
that  the  soul  was  eternal}  In  this  love  he  found  all  the  springs 
of  happiness.  This  rational  view  of  virtue  he  afterwards  con- 
nects  with  notions  of  free-will.  {Rectitude  of  will,  or  that  con- 
dition of  will  by  virtue  of  which  man  wills  what  he  ought, 
is  identical  with  virtue,  a  mere  rectitude  of  knowledge  will  not 
do,  nor  a  rectitude  of  action^  the  one  is  presupposed  and  the 
other  accompanies,  but  the  essence  of  both  consist  in  willing 
what  we  ought,  and  only  because  we  ought.  Staundlin's 
Geschichte  der.  M.  Ph. 


^ 


** 


HISTORY    OF    MOEAL    PHILOSOPHY.  21 


^ 


(9.)     OCKHAMV  OPINION  OF  THE  FOUNDATION   OF  MORALITY. 

"William  of  Ockham,  the  most  justly  celebrated  of  English. 
schoolmen,  went  so  far  beyond  this  inclination  of  his  master, 
(Duns  ScotuSj)  as  to  affirm,  that,  "  if  God  had  commanded 
his  creatures  to  hate  himself,  the  hatred  of  God  would  ever 
be  the  duty  of  man  ;"  a  monstrous  hyperbole,  into  which  he 
was  perhaps  betrayed  by  his  denial  of  the  doctrine  of  general 
ideas,  the  pre-existence  of  which  in  the  Eternal  intellect  was 
commonly  regarded  as  the  foundation  of  the  immutable  na- 
ture of  morality.  The  doctrine  of  Ockham,  which  by  neces- 
sary implication  refuses  moral  attributes  to  the  Deity,  and 
contradicts  the  existence  of  a  moral  government,  is  practically 
equivalent  to  Atheism.  Mackintoshes  Ethical  Diss. 

(10.)     NOMINALISM  AND  REALISM. 

Hand  in  hand  with  the  whole  development  of  Scholastic- 
ism, there  was  developed  the  opposition  between  Nominalism 
and  Realism,  an  opposition  whose  origin  is  to  be  found  in  the 
relation  of  Scholasticism  to  the  Platonic  and  Aristotelian 
philosophy.  The  Nominalists  were  those  who  held  that  the 
conceptions  of  the  universal  (the  universalia)  were  simple 
names,  flatus  wm/representations  without  content  and  with- 
out reality.  According  to  them  there  are  no  universal  con- 
ceptions, no  species,  no  class  ;  everything  which,  exists  only 
as  separate  in  its  pure  individuality  ;  there  is,  therefore,  no 
pure  thinking,  but  only  a  representation  and  sensuous  percep- 
tion. The  Realists,  on  the  other  hand,  taking  pattern  from 
Plato,  held  fast  to  the  objective  reality  of  the  universals 
(universalia  ante  rem.)  These  opposite  directions  appeared 
first  between  Roscellinus,  who  took  the  side  of  Nominalism, 
and  Anselm,  who  advocated  the  Realistic  theory,  and  it  is 
seen  from  this  time  through  the  whole  period  of  Scholasticism, 
though  from  the  age  of  Abelard  (born  1079)  a  middle  view, 
which  was  both  Nominalistic  and  Realistic,  held  with  some 


HISTORY    OF    MORAL    PHILOSOPHY. 

slight  modifications  the  prominent  place  (universalia  in  re.*) 
According  to  this  view  the  universal  is  only  something  thought 
and  represented,  though  as  such  it  is  not  simply  a  product  of 
the  representing  consciousness,  but  has  also  its  objective  reali- 
ty in  objects  themselves,  from  which  it  was  argued  we  could 
not  abstract  it  if  it  were  not  essentially  contained  in  them. 
This  identity  of  thought  and  being,  is  the  fundamental  pre- 
mise on  which  the  whole  dialectic  course  of  the  Scholastics 
rests.  All  their  arguments  are  founded  on  the  claim,  that 
that  which  has  been  syllogistically  proved  is  in  reality  the 
same  as  in  logical  thinking.  If  this  premise  is  overthrown, 
so  falls  with  it  the  whole  basis  of  Scholasticism  ;  and  there 
remains  nothing  more  for  the  thinker  to  do,  who  has  gone 
astray  in  his  objectivity,  but  to  fall  back  upon  himself.  This 
self-dissolution  of  Scholasticism  actually  appears  with  William 
of  OcJcham  (died  1347,)  the  most  influential  reviver  of  that 
Nominalism,  but  which  had  been  so  mighty  in  the  beginning 
of  Scholasticism,  but  which  now,  more  victorious  against  a 
decaying  than  then  against  a  rising  form  of  culture,  plucked 
away  its  foundation  from  the  framework  of  Scholastic  dogma- 
tism, and  brought  the  whole  structure  into  inevitable  ruin. 
Schwegler's  History  of  Philosophy. 

(11.)     ETHICAL  DOCTRINES  OF  HUGO  GROTIUS. 

That  he  may  lay  down  the  fundamental  principles  of  Ethics, 
he  introduces  Carneades  on  the  stage  as  denying  altogether 
the  reality  of  moral  distinctions  ;  teaching  that  law  and  mor- 
ality are  contrived  by  powerful  men  for  their  own  interest ; 
that  they  vary  in  different  countries,  and  change  in  succes- 
sive ages ;  that  there  can  be  no  natural  law,  since  nature 
leads  men  as  well  as  other  animals  to  prefer  their  own  inter- 
est to  every  other  object;  that  therefore  there  is  either  no 
justice,  or  if  there  be,  it  is  another  name  for  the  height  of 
folly,  inasmuch  as  it  is  a  fond  attempt  to  persuade  a  human 


HISTORY    OF    MORAL    PHILOSOPHY.  23 

being  to  injure  himself  for  the  unnatural  purpose  of  benefit- 
ting  his  fellowmen. 

To  this  Grotius  answered,  that  even  inferior  animals  under 
the  powerful,  though  transient  impulse  of  parental  love,  pre- 
fer their  young  to  their  own  safety  or  life ;  that  gleams  of  com- 
passion, and,  he  might  have  added,  of  gratitude  and  indigna- 
tion, appear  in  the  human  infant  long  before  the  age  of  moral 
discipline  :  that  man  at  the  period  of  maturity  is  a  social  ani- 
mal, who  delights  in  the  society  of  his  fellow-creatures  for  its 
own  sake,  independently  of  the  help  and  accommodation  which 
it  yields ;  that  he  is  a  reasonable  being,  capable  of  framing 
and  pursuing  general  rules  of  conduct,  of  which  he  discerns 
that  the  observance  contributes  to  a  regular,  quiet,  and  happy 
intercourse  between  all  the  members  of  the  community ;  and 
that  from  these  considerations  all  the  precepts  of  morality,  and 
all  the  commands  and  prohibitions  of  just  law,  may  be  de- 
rived by  impartial  reason.  "And  these  principles,"  says  the 
pious  philosopher,  "  would  have  their  weight,  even  if  it  were 
to  be  granted  (which  could  not  be  conceded  without  the  high- 
est impiety)  that  there  is  no  God,  or  that  he  exercises  no 
moral  government  over  human  affairs."  "  Natural  law  is  the 
dictate  of  right  reason,  pronouncing  that  there  is  in  some  ac- 
tions a  moral  obligation,  and  in  other  actions  a  moral  defor- 
mity, arising  from  their  respective  suitableness  or  repugnance 
to  the  reasonable  and  social  nature ;  and  that  consequently 
such  acts  are  either  forbidden  or  enjoined  by  God,  the  author 
of  nature.  Actions  which  are  the  subject  of  this  execution 
of  reason,  are  in  themselves  lawful  or  unlawful,  and  are 
therefore  as  such  necessarily  commanded  or  prohibited  by 
God."  Mackintosh's  Ethical  Diss.^  p.  102. 


24  HISTORY  OF   MORAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

(12.)     JEREMY  TAYLOR'S  VIEW  OF  CONSCIENCE. 


that  it  was  well  said  of  St.  Bernard,  Conscientia  candor 
est  lucis  ceternce,  et  speculum  sine  macula  Dei  Majestatis,  et 
imago  bonitatis  illius :  'Conscience  is  the  brightness  and 
spleifdour  of  the  eternal  light,  a  spotless  mirror  of  the  Divine 
Majesty,  and  the  image  of  the  goodness  of  God.'  It  is  higher 
which  Tatianus  said  of  conscience,  M6vov  sTvau  tfwsiSytftv  dsov — 
"  Conscience  is  God  unto  us,  which  saying  he  had  from  Me- 
nander :" 


and  it  had  in  it  this  truth,  that  God,  who  is  everywhere  in 
several  manners,  hath  the  appellative  of  his  own  attributes 
and  effects  in  the  several  manners  of  his  presence. 

'  '  Jupiter  est  quodcunque  vides,  quodcanque  moveris." 

"  That  Providence  "  he  adds,  "  which  governs  all  the  world, 
is  nothing  else  but  God  present  by  his  providence,  and  God 
is  in  our  hearts  by  his  laws  ;  he  rules  us  by  his  substitute, 
our  conscience."  He  then  proceeds  to  illustrate  this  in  his 
own  way  :  "  God  sits  there,  and  gives  us  laws  ;  and,  as  God 
said  to  Moses,  I  have  made  thee  a  God  to  Pharoah,  that  is  to 
give  him  laws,  and  to  minister  in  the  execution  of  these  laws, 
and  to  inflict  angry  sentences  upon  him,  so  hath  God  done  to 
us,  to  give  us  laws,  and  to  exact  obedience  to  those  laws  ;  to 
punish  them  that  prevaricate,  and  to  reward  the  obedient.  — 
And  therefore  conscience  is  called  o/Wo£  *u\af?  &VQI/MS  QBQS 
sViVotfos  flaffwdv,  the  household  guardian,  the  domestic  God, 
the  spirit  or  angel  of  the  place."  —  Rule  of  Conscience. 

(13.)      HOBBES'   YlEW   OF   YlRTUE   AND   YlCE. 

Every  man  by  natural  passion,  calleth  that  good  which 
pleaseth  him  for  the  present,  or  so  far  forth  as  he  can  foresee  ; 
and  in  like  manner,  that  which  displeaseth  him,  evil.  And 
therefore  he  that  foreseeth  the  whole  way  to  his  preservation, 
which  is  the  end  that  every  one  by  nature  aimeth  at,  must 


HISTOEY   OF   MORAL    PHILOSOPHY.  25 

also  call  it  good,  and  the  contrary  evil.  And  this  is  that  good 
and  evil,  which  not  every  man  in  passion  calleth  so,  but  all 
men  by  reason.  And  therefore  the  fulfilling  of  all  these  laws 
is  good  in  reason,  and  the  breaking  of  them  evil.  And  so 
also  the  habit,  or  disposition,  or  intention  tofulal  them  good  ; 
and  the  neglect  of  them  evil.  And  from  hence  cometh  that 
distinction  of  malum  pcence,  and  malum  culpcs :  for  malum 
pc&rw  is  any  pain  or  molestation  of  the  mind  whatsoever,  but 
malum  culpce  is  that  action  which  is  contrary  to  reason  and 
the  law  of  nature;  as  also  the  habit  of  doing  according  to 
these  and  other  laws  of  nature,  that  tend  to  our  preservation, 
is  that  we  call  virtue  /  and  the  habit  of  doing  the  contrary, 
vice.  As  for  example,  justice  is  that  habit  by  which  we  stand 
to  covenants,  injustice  the  contrary  vice ;  equity  that  habit 
by  which  we  allow  equality  of  nature,  arrogancy  the  contrary 
vice ;  gratitude  the  habit  whereby  we  requite  the  benefit  and 
trust  of  others,  ingratitude  the  contrary  vice ;  temperance 
the  habit  by  which  we  abstain  from  all  things  that  tend  to 
our  destruction,  intemperance  the  contrary  vice ;  prudence, 
the  same  with  virtue  in  general.  As  for  the  common  opinion, 
that  virtue  consisteth  in  mediocrity,  and  vice  in  extremes,  I 
see  no  ground  for  it,  nor  can  find  any  such  mediocrity.  Cour- 
age may  be  virtue,  when  the  daring  is  extreme,  if  the  cause 
be  good,  and  extreme  fear  no  vice  when  the  danger  is  extreme. 
To  give  a  man  more  than  his  due,  is  no  injustice,  though  it  be 
to  give  him  less  :  and  in  gifts  it  is  not  the  sum  that  maketh 
liberality,  but  the  reason.  And  so  in  all  other  virtues  and 
vices.  I  know  that  this  doctrine  of  mediocrity  is  Aristotle's, 
but  his  opinions  concern  ing- virtue  and  vice,  are  no  other  than 
those,  which  were  received  then,  and  are  still  by  the  gener- 
ality of  men  unstudied,  and  therefore  not  very  likely  to  be 
accurate. 

The  sum  of  virtue  is  to  be  sociable  with  them  that  will  be 
sociable,  and  formidable  to  them  that  will  not.    And  the 


25  HISTORY  OP  MORAL    PHILOSOPHY. 

same  is  the  sum  of  the  law  of  nature :  for  in  being  sociable,  the 
law  of  nature  taketh  place  bj  way  of  peace  and  society  ;  and 
to  be  formidable,  is  the  law  of  nature  in  war,  where  to  be 
feared  is  a  protection  a  man  hath  from  his  own  power  :  and 
as  the  former  consisteth  in  actions  of  equity  and  justice,  the 
latter  consisteth  in  actions  of  honor.  And  equity,  justice, 
and  honor,  contain  all  virtues  whatsoever. — Holfoes*  4  vol.  £?u 
man  Nature. 

(14.)     MORE'S  ETHICAL  OPINIONS. 

Ethics  is,  he  begins  by  asserting,  the  art  of  living  well  and 
happily,  Ars  bene  bealeque  vivendi.  And  he  forthwith  pro- 
ceeds to  treat  of  this  happiness,  de  Beatitudine.  He  soon  de- 
termines that  this  beatitude  is  to  be  placed  in  a  Boniform  Facul- 
ty. Of  this  boniform  faculty,  the  fruit  is  a  happiness  or  divine 
love,  than  which  no  greater  happiness  can  exist,  he  ven- 
tures to  declare,  either  in  the  present  life  or  in  the  future. 
And  this  happiness  must  arise,  not  from  the  mere  knowledge, 
but  from  the  sense  of  virtue,  ex  sensu  virtutis. 

It  becomes  obvious,  in  such  expressions,  how  easy  the  tran- 
sition is,  from  the  consideration  of  virtue  as  the  source  of 
happiness,  to  virtue  as  perceived  by  a  peculiar  faculty ;  since, 
in  this  view,  the  happiness,  as  well  as  the  perception,  requires 
a  peculiar  faculty  for  its  realization.  "  If  any  one,"  More 
says,  "  estimates  the  fruit  of  virtue  by  that  imaginary  knowl- 
edge of  virtue  which  is  acquired  by  definitions  alone,  it  is  all 
one  as  if  he  should  try  to  estimate  the  knowledge  of  fire  from 
a  fire  painted  on  the  wall,  which  has  no  power  whatever  to 
keep  off  the  winter's  cold."  "  Every  vital  good,"  he  adds, 
"  is  perceived  and  judged  of  by  a  life  and  a  sense.  Virtue  is 
an  intimate  life,  not  an  eternal  form,  nor  a  thing  visible  to 
outward  eyes."  And  he  quotes  from  one  of  his  favorites,  the 
Neoplatonists,  "If  thou  art  this,  thou  hast  seen  this." — 
WheweWs  History  of  Moral  Philosophy. 


HISTORY    OF    MORAL    PHILOSOPHY.  27 

MAA  ch 

(15.)     CLARK'S  MORAL  DOCTRINE. 

The  sum  of  his  moral  doctrine  may  be  stated  as  follows. 
Man  can  conceive  nothing  without  at  the  same  time  con- 
ceiving its  relations  to  other  things.  He  must  ascribe  the 
same  law  of  perception  to  every  being  to  whom  he  ascribes 
thought.  He  cannot  therefore  doubt  that  all  the  relations  of 
all  things  to  all  must  have  always  been  present  to  the  Eternal 
Mind.  The  relations  in  this  sense  are  eternal,  however  recent 
the  things  may  be  between  which  they  subsist.  The  whole 
of  these  relations  constitute  truth.  The  knowledge  of  them 
is  omniscience.  These  eternal  different  relations  of  things 
involve  a  consequent  eternal  fitness  or  unfitness  in  the  appli- 
cation of  things  one  to  another ;  with  a  regard  to  which,  the 
•will  of  God  always  chooses,  and  which  ought  likewise  to  de- 
termine the  wills  of  all  subordinate  rational  beings.  These 
eternal  differences  make  it  fit  and  reasonable  for  the 
creatures  so  to  act ;  they  cause  it  to  be  their  duty,  or  lay  an 
obligation  on  them  so  to  do,  separate  from  the  will  of  God, 
and  antecedent  to  any  prospect  of  advantage  or  reward.  Nay, 
wilful  wickedness  is  the  same  absurdity  and  insolence  in 
morals,  as  it  would  be  in  natural  things  to  pretend  to  alter  the 
relations  of  numbers,  or  to  take  away  the  properties  of  mathe- 
matical figures.  "Morality,"  says  one  of  his  most  ingenious 
scholars,  "  is  the  practice  of  reason." — Mackintoshes  EiJi.  Diss. 

(16.)    THEORY  OF  MANDEVTLLK 

The  great  object  of  Mandeville's  inquiry  into  the  origin  of 
moral  virtue,  is  to  show  that  all  our  moral  sentiments  are 
derived  from  education,  and  are  the  workmanship  of  politi- 
cians and  lawgivers.  N, 

It  appears  from  the  passage  formerly  quoted,  that  the 
engine  which  Mandeville  supposes  politicians  to  employ  for 
the  purpose  of  creating  the  artificial  distinction  between  virtue 
and  vice  is  vanity  or  pride,  which  two  words  he  uses  as 


28  HISTORY  OF  MORAL    PHILOSOPHY. 

synonymous.  He  employs  them  likewise  in  a  much  more 
extensive  sense  than  their  common  acceptation  authorizes  ; 
to  denote,  not  only  an  overweening  conceit  of  our  own  char- 
acter and  attainments,  or  a  weak  and  childish  passion  for  the 
admiration  of  others,  but  that  reasonable  desire  for  the  esteem 
of  our  fellow-creatures  which,  so  far  from  being  a  weakness, 
is  a  laudable  and  respectable  principle. 

From  the  principle  of  vanity,  Mandeville  endeavours  to 
account  for  all  the  instances  of  self-denial  that  have  occurred 
in  the  world.  But  he  is  not  satisfied  with  explaining  away 
in  this  manner  the  reality  of  moral  distinctions.  He  endeav- 
ours to  show  that  human  life  is  nothing  but  a  scene  of  hypoc- 
risy, and  that  there  is  really  little  or  none  of  that  self-denial 
to  be  found  that  some  men  lay  claim  to.  In  his  theory  of 
moral  virtue  be  seems  to  allow  that  education  may  not  only 
teach  a  man  to  check  his  appetites  in  order  to  procure  the 
esteem  of  others,  but  that  it  may  teach  him  to  consider  such 
a  conquest  over  the  lower  principles  of  his  nature  as  noble  in 
itself,  and  as  elevating  him  still  further  than  nature  had  done 
above  the  level  of  the  brutes.  ,  "  Those  men"  (says  he)  "who 
have  laboured  to  establish  societies  endeavoured,  in  the  first 
place,  to  insinuate  themselves  into  the  hearts  of  men  by  flat- 
tery, extolling  the  excellencies  of  our  nature  above  other 
animals.  They  next  began  to  instruct  them  in  the  notions  of 
honour  and  shame,  representing  the  one  as  the  worst  of  all 
evils,  and  the  other  as  the  highest  good  to  which  mortals  could 
aspire; — which  being  done,  they  laid  before  them  how  unbe- 
coming it  was  the  dignity  of  such  sublime  creatures  to  be 
solicitous  about  gratifying  those  appetites  which  they  had  in 
common  with  the  brutes,  and  at  the  same  time  unmindful  of 
those  higher  qualities  that  gave  them  the  pre  eminence  over 
all  the  visible  beings.  They,  indeed,  confessed  that  these  im- 
pulses of  nature  were  very  pressing  ;  that  it  was  troublesome 
to  resist,  and  very  difficult  wholly  to  subdue  them.  But  this 


HISTOEY  OF  MORAL    PHILOSOPHY. 


they  only  used  as  an  argument  to  demonstrate  how  glorious 
the  conquest  of  them  was  on  the  one  hand,  and  how  scandal- 
ous on  the  other,  not  to  attempt  it." — Stewart? 8  Act.  and 
Moral  Powers. 

(17.)     SUMMARY  OF  MALEBEANCHE'S  SYSTEM.      '       •  ^ ^   -A 

"  There  is,"  says  he,  "  one  parent  virtu  re,  the  universal  vir- 
tue, the  virtue  which  renders  us  just  and  perfect,  the  virtue 
which  will  one  day  render  us  happy.  It  is  the  only  virtue.  It 
is  the  love  of  the  universal  order,  as  it  eternally  existed  in  the 
Divine  reason,  where  every  created  reason  contemplates  it. 
This  order  is  composed  of  practical  as  well  as  speculative 
truth.  Keason  perceives  the  moral  superiority  of  one  being 
over  another,  as  immediately  as  the  equality  of  the  radii  of 
the  same  circle.  The  relative  perfection  of  beings  is  that 
part  of  the  immovable  order  to  which  men  must  conform 
their  minds  and  their  conduct.  The  love  of  order  is  the  whole 
of  virtue,  and  conformity  to  order  constitutes  the  morality  of 
actions."  It  is  not  difficult  to  discover,  that  in  spite  of  the  sin- 
gular skill  employed  in  weaving  this  web,  it  answers  no  other 
purpose  than  that  of  hiding  the  whole  difficulty.  The  love  of 
universal  order,  says  Malebranche.  requires  that  we  should 
value  an  animal  more  than  a  stone,  because  it  is  more  valua- 
ble ;  and  love  God  infinitely  more  than  man,  because  he  is 
infinitely  better.  But  without  presupposing  the  reality  of 
moral  distinctions,  and  the  power  of  moral  feelings,  the  two 
points  to  be  proved,  how  can  either  of  these  propositions  be 
evident,  or  even  intelligible?  To  say  that  a  love  of  the  eter- 
nal order  will  produce  the  love  and  practice  of  every  virtue, 
is  an  assertion  untenable  unless  we  take  morality  for  granted, 
and  useless  if  we  do. 

In  his  work  on  Morals,  all  the  incidental  and  secondary  re- 
marks are  equally  well  considered  and  well  expressed.  The 
manner  in  which  he  applied  his  principle  to  the  particulars 


30  HISTOEY   OF   MORAL    PHILOSOPHY. 

of  human  duty,  is  excellent.  He  is,  perhaps,  the  first  philoso- 
pher who  has  precisely  laid  down  and  rigidly  adhered  to  the 
great  principle,  that  virtue  consists  in  pure  intentions  and  dis- 
positions of  mind,  without  which,  actions,  however  conform- 
able to  rules,  are  not  truly  moral ;  a  truth  of  the  highest  im- 
portance, which,  in  the  theological  form,  may  be  said  to  have 
been  the  main  principle  of  the  first  Protestant  Reformers. — 
Mackintoshes  Eth.  Diss.,  p.  179. 

(18.)    HUTCHESON'S  VIEWS  OF  A  MOKAL  SENSE. 

A  late  very  distinguished  writer,  Dr.  Hutcheson,  deduces 
our  moral, ideas  from  a  moral  sense  :  meaning  by  this  sense, 
a  power  within  us,  different  from  reason,  which  renders  cer- 
tain actions  pleasing  and  others  displeasing  to  us.  As  we  are 
so  made,  that  certain  impressions  on  our  bodily  organs  shall 
excite  certain  ideas  in  our  minds,  and  that  certain  outward 
forms,  when  presented  to  us,  shall  be  the  necessary  occasions 
of  pleasure  or  pain.  In  like  manner,  according  to  Dr  Hutch- 
eson, we  are  so  made,  that  certain  affections  and  actions  of 
moral  agents  shall  be  the  necessary  occasions  of  agreeable  or 
disagreeable  sensations  in  us,  and  procure  our  love  or  dislike 
of  them.  He  has  indeed  well  shewn,  that  we  have  a  faculty 
determining  us  immediately  to  approve  or  disapprove  actions, 
abstracted  from  all  views  of  private  advantage ;  and  that  the 
highest  pleasures  of  life  depend  upon  this  faculty.  Had  he 
proceeded  no  farther,  and  intended  nothing  more  by  the  moral 
sense,  than  our  moral  faculty  in  general,  little  room  would 
have  been  left  for  any  objections  :  But  then  he  would  have 
meant  by  it  nothing  new,  and  he  could  not  have  been  consid- 
ered as  the  discoverer  of  it.  From  the  term  sense,  which  he 
applies  to  it,  from  his  rejection  of  all  the  arguments  that  have 
been  used  to  prove  it  to  be  an  intellectual  power,  and  from 
the  whole  of  his  language  on  this  subject ;  it  is  evident,  he 
considered  it  as  the  effect  of  a  positive  constitution  of  our 


HISTORY   OF  MORAL    PHILOSOPHY.  3 

minds,  or  as  an  implanted  and  arbitrary  principle  by  which 
a  relish  is  given  us  for  certain  moral  objects  and  forms  and 
aversions  to  others,  similar  to  the  relishes  and  aversions  crea- 
ted by  any  of  our  other  senses.  In  other  words,  our  ideas 
of  morality,  if  this  account  is  right,  have  the  same  origin  with 
our  ideas  of  the  sensible  qualities  of  bodies,  the  harmony  of 
sounds,  of  the  beauties  of  painting  or  sculpture ;  that  is, 
the  mere  good  pleasure  of  our  Maker  adapting  the  mind  and 
its  organs  in  a  particular  manner  to  certain  objects.  Virtue 
(as  those  who  embrace  this  scheme  say)  is  an  affair  of  taste. 
Moral  right  and  wrong,  signify  nothing  in  the  obj*  -is  themr 
selves  to  which  they  are  applied,  any  more  than  agreeable 
and  harsh,  sweet  and  bitter ;  pleasant  and  painful ;  but  only 
certain  effects  in  us.  Our  perception  of  right,  or  moral  good, 
in  actions,  is  that  agreeable  emotion,  or  feeling,  which  certain 
actions  produce  in  us  ;  and  of  wrong,  or  moral  evil,  the  con- 
trary. They  are  particular  modifications  of  our  minds,  or 
impressions  which  they  are  made  to  receive  from  the  contem- 
plation of  certain  actions,  which  the  contrary  actions  might 
have  occasioned,  had  the  Author  of  nature  so  pleased  ;  and 
which  to  suppose  to  belong  to  these  actions  themselves,  is  as 
absurd  as  to  ascribe  the  pleasure  or  uneasiness,  which  the  ob- 
servation of  a  particular  form  gives  us,  to  the  form  itself.  Tis 
therefore,  by  this  account,  improper  to  say  of  an  action,  that 
it  is  right,  in  much  the  same  sense  that  it  is  improper  to  say 
of  an  object  of  taste,  that  it  is  sweet  /  or  of  pain,  that  it  is  in 
fire. — Price  on  Morals,  p.  8. 

(19.)    HUME'S  REFERENCE  OF  MORAL  INSTRUCTIONS  TO  A  SENSE. 

Thus  the  course  of  the  argument  leads  us  to  conclude,  that 
since  vice  and  virtue  are  not  discoverable  merely  by  reason, 
or  the  comparison  of  ideas,  it  must  be  by  means  of  some  im- 
pression or  sentiment  they  occasion,  that  we  are  able  to  mark 
the  difference  betwixt  them.  Our  decisions  concerning  moral 


32  HISTOKY   OF   MORAL    PHILOSOPHY. 

rectitude  and  depravity  are  evidently  perceptions;  and  as  all 
perceptions  are  either  impressions  or  ideas,  the  exclusion  of 
the  one  is  a  convincing  argument  for  the  other.  Morality, 
therefore,  is  more  properly  felt  than  judged  of;  though  this 
feeling  or  sentiment  is  commonly  so  sort  and  gentle  that  we 
are  apt  to  confound  it  with  an  idea,  according  to  our  common, 
custom  of  taking  all  things  for  the  same  which  have  any  near 
resemblance  to  each  other. 

Now,  since  the  distinguishing  impressions  by  which  moral 
good  or  evil  is  known,  are  nothing  but  particular  pains  or 
pleasures,  it  follows,  that  in  all  inquiries  concerning  these  moral 
distinctions,  it  will  be  sufficient  to  show  the  principles  which 
make  us  feel  a  satisfaction  or  uneasiness  from  the  survey  of 
any  character,  in  order  to  satisfy  us  why  the  character  is  lau- 
dable or  blameable.  An  action,  or  sentiment,  or  character, 
is  virtuous  or  vicious ;  why  ?  because  its  view  causes  a  pleas- 
ure or  uneasiness  of  a  particular  kind.  In  giving  a  reason, 
therefore,  for  the  pleasure  or  uneasiness,  we  sufficiently  ex- 
plain the  vice  or  virtue.  To  have  the  sense  of  virtue,  is  noth- 
ing but  to  feel  a  satisfaction  of  a  particular  kind  from  the 
contemplation  of  a  character.  The  very  feeling  constitutes 
our  praise  or  admiration.  We  go  no  farther ;  nor  do  we  in- 
quire into  the  cause  of  the  satisfaction.  We  do  not  infer  a 
character  to  be  virtuous,  because  it  pleases  ;  but  in  feeling 
that  it  pleases  after  such  a  particular  manner,  we  in  effect 
feel  that  it  is  virtuous.  The  case  is  the  same  as  in  our  judg- 
ments concerning  all  kinds  of  beauty,  and  tastes,  and  sensa- 
tions. Our  approbation  is  implied  in  the  immediate  pleasure 
they  convey  to  us. — Hume's  Works,  vol.  2,^>.  236. 

(20.)     SKETCH  OF  ADAM  SMITH'S  MOKAL  SYSTEM. 

That  mankind  are  so  constituted  as  to  sympathize  with  each 
other's  feelings,  and  to  feel  pleasure  in  the  accordance  of  these 
feelings,  are  the  only  facts  required  by  Dr.  Smith,  and  they 


HISTORY    OF    MORAL    PHILOSOPHY.  33 

certainly  must  be  granted  to  him.  To  adopt  the  feelings  of 
another,  is  to  approve  them.  When  the  sentiments  of  another 
are  sHich  as  would  be  excited  in  us  by  the  same  objects,  we 
approve  them  as  morally  proper.  To  obtain  this  accord,  it 
becomes  necessary  for  him  who  enjoys  or  suffers,  to  lower  his 
expression  of  feeling  to  the  point  to  which  the  bystanders  can 
raise  his  fellow-feelings  ;  on  which  are  founded  all  the  high 
virtues  of  self-denial  and  self-command  ;  and  it  is  equally 
necessary  for  the  bystander  to  raise  his  sympathy  as  near  as  be 
can  to  the  level  of  the  original  feeling.  In  all  unsocial  pas- 
sions, such  as  anger,  we  have  a  divided  sympathy  between 
him  who  feels  them  and  those  who  are  the  objects  of  them. 
Hence  the  propriety  of  extremely  moderating  them.  Pure 
malice  is  always  to  be  concealed  or  disguised,  because  all 
sympathy 'is  arrayed  against  it.  In  the  private  passions,  where 
there  is  only  a  simple  sympathy — that  with  the  original  pas- 
sion— the  expression  has  more  liberty.  The  benevolent  af- 
fections, where  there  is  a  double  sympathy — with  those  who 
feel  them,  and  those  who  are  their  objects — are  the  most 
agreeable,  and  may  be  indulged  with  the  least  apprehensions 
of  finding  no  echo  in  other  breasts.  Sympathy  with  the  grat- 
itude of  those  who  are  benefited  by  good  actions,  prompts  us 
to  consider  them  as  deserving  of  reward,  and  forms  the  sense 
of  merit  /  as  fellow-feeling  with  the  resentment  of  those  who 
are  injured  by  crimes  leads  us  to  look  on  them  as  worthy  of 
punishment,  and  constitutes  the  sense  of  demerit.  These  sen- 
timents require  not  only  beneficial  actions,  but  benevolent 
motives  for  them  ;  being  compounded,  in  the  case  of  merit, 
of  a  direct  sympathy  with  the  good  disposition  of  the  bene- 
factor, and  an  indirect  sympathy  with  the  persons  benefited  ; 
in  the  opposite  case,  with  precisely  opposite  sympathies.  He 
who  does  an  act  of  wrong  to  another  to  gratify  his  own  pas- 
sions, must  not  expect  that  the  spectators,  who  have  none  of 
his  undue  partially  to  his  own  interest,  will  enter  into  his 


34  mSTOEY    OF    MORAL    PHILOSOPHY. 

feelings.  In  such  a  case,  he  knows  that  they  will  pity  the 
person  wronged,  and  be  full  of  indignation  against  him. 
"When  he  is  cooled,  he  adopts  the  sentiments  of  others  on  his 
own  crime,  feels  shame  at  the  impropriety  of  his  former  pas" 
sion,  pity  for  those  who  have  suffered  by  him,  and  a  dread  of 
punishment  from  general  and  just  resentment.  Such  are  the 
constituent  parts  of  remorse. 

Our  moral  sentiments  respecting  ourselves  arise  from  those 
which  others  feel  concerning  us.  We  feel  a  self-approbation 
whenever  we  believe  that  the  general  feeling  of  mankind  co- 
incides with  that  state  of  mind  in  which  we  ourselves  were  at  a 
given  time.  "  We  suppose  ourselves  the  spectators  of  our  own 
behaviour,  and  endeavor  to  imagine  what  effect  it  would  in  this 
light  produce  in  us."  We  must  view  our  own  conduct  with 
the  eyes  of  others  before  we  can  judge  it.  The  sense  of  duty 
arises  from  putting  ourselves  in  the  place  of  others,  and 
adopting  their  sentiments  respecting  our  own  conduct.  In 
utter  solitude  there  could  have  been  no  self-approbation.  The 
rules  of  morality  are  a  summary  of  those  sentiments ;  and 
often  beneficially  stand  in  their  stead  when  the  self-delusions 
of  passion  would  otherwise  hide  from  us  the  non-conformity 
of  our  state  of  mind  with  that  which,  in  the  circumstances, 
can  be  entered  into  and  approved  by  impartial  bystanders. 
It  is  hence  that  we  learn  to  raise  our  mind  above  local  or  tem- 
porary clamor,  and  to  fix  our  eyes  on  the  surest  indications  of 
the  general  and  lasting  sentiments  of  human  nature.  "When 
we  approve  of  any  character  or  action,  our  sentiments  are  deriv- 
ed from  four  sources ;  first,  we  sympathize  with  the  motives 
of  the  agent ;  secondly,  we  enter  into  the  gratitude  of  those 
who  have  been  benefitted  by  his  actions;  thirdly,  we  observe 
that  his  conduct  has  been  agreeable  to  the  general  rules  by 
which  those  two  sympathies  generally  act ;  and,  last  of  all, 
when  we  consider  such  actions  as  forming  part  of  a  system 
of  behavior  which  tends  to  promote  the  happiness  either  of 


HISTORY    OF    MORAL    PHILOSOPHY.  35 

the  individual  or  of  society,  they  appear  to  derive  a  beauty 
from  this  utility,  not  unlike  that  which  we  ascribe  to  any 
well-contrived  machine." — Mackintosh's  Eth.  Diss.,  p.  234:. 

(21.)     GAY  UPON  THE  CONNECTION  OF   HAPPINESS  WITH   THE 
LOVE  OF  GOD. 

He  says :  "  Now  it  is  evident  from  the  Nature  of  God,  viz. 
his  being  infinitely  happy  in  himself  from  all  eternity,  and 
from  his  goodnes  manifested  in  his  works,  that  he  could  have 
no  other  design  in  creating  mankind  than  their  happiness  ;  and 
therefore,  the  means  of  their  happiness :  therefore,  that  my 
behavior,  as  far  as  it  may  be  a  means  of  the  happiness  of 
mankind,  should  be  such.  Here  then  we  get  one  step 
further,  or  to  a  new  criterion :  not  to  a  new  criterion  of  Vir- 
tue  immediately,  but  to  a  criterion  of  the  Will  of  God.  For 
it  is  an  answer  to  the  enquiry,  How  shall  I  know  what  the 
Will  of  God  in  this  particular  is?  Thus  the  Will  of  God  is 
the  immediate  criterion  of  Virtue,  and  the  happiness  of  man- 
kind the  criterion  of  the  Will  of  God  ;  and  therefore  the  hap- 
piness of  mankind  may  be  said  to  be  the  criterion  of  Virtue, 
but  once  removed." 

"  As  therefore  happiness  is  the  general  end  of  all  actions,  so 
each  particular  action  may  be  said  to  have  its  proper  and  pe- 
culiar end.  Thus  the  end  of  a  beau  is  to  please  by  his  dress  ; 
the  end  of  study,  knowledge.  But  neither  pleasing  by  dress, 
nor  knowledge,  are  ultimate  ends  ;  they  still  tend,  or  ought  to 
tend,  to  something  farther,  as  is  evident  from  hence,  viz.  that 
a  man  may  ask  and  expect  a  reason  why  either  of  them  are 
pursued.  Now  to  ask  the  reason  of  any  action  or  pursuit,  is 
only  to  enquire  into  the  end  of  it  :  but  expect  a  reason,  i.  e. 
an  end,  to  be  assigned  for  an  ultimate  end,  is  absurd.  To  ask 
why  I  pursue  happiness,  will  admit  of  no  other  answer  than 
an  explanation  of  the  terms." 

Gay's  definition  of  Virtue  is  wider  than  Paley's  :  "  Virtue 


36  HISTORY    OF    MORAL    PHILOSOPHY. 

is  the  conformity  to  a  rule  of  life,  directing  the  actions  of  all 
rational  creatures  with  respect  to  each  other's  happiness  ;  to 
which  conformity  every  one  in  all  cases  is  obliged  :  and  every 
one  that  does  so  conform,  is,  or  ought  to  be  approved  of,  es- 
teemed,-and  loved  for  so  doing.5' 

/*/ 

(22.)     (1.)     PALEY'S  OPINIONS  OF  HAPPINESS. 

In  strictness,  any  condition  may  be  denominated  happy, 
in  which  the  amount  or  aggregate  of  pleasure  exceeds  that  of 
pain;  and  the  degree  of  happiness  depends  upon  the  quan- 
tity of  this  excess. 

And  the  greatest  quantity  of  it  ordinarily  attainable  in  hu- 
man life  is  what  we  mean  by  happiness,  when  we  inquire  or 
pronounce  what  human  happiness  consists  in. 

In  which  inquiry  I  will  omit  much  usual  declamation  on  the 
dignity  and  capacity  of  our  nature ;  the  superiority  of  the 
soul  to  the  body,  of  the  rational  to  the  animal  part  of  our 
constitution ;  upon  the  worthiness,  refinement,  and  delicacy 
of  some  satisfactions,  or  the  meanness,  grossness,  and  sensu- 
ality of  others  ;  because  I  hold  that  pleasures  differ  in  noth- 
ing but  in  continuance  and  intensity :  from  a  just  computation 
of  which,  confirmed  by  what  we  observe  of  the  apparent  cheer- 
fulness, tranquility,  and  contentment,  of  men  of  different 
tastes,  tempers,  stations,  and  pursuits,  every  question  con- 
cerning human  happiness  must  receive  its  decision. 

(2.)    PALEY'S  OPINION  OF  VIRTUE. 

Virtue  is  "  the  doing  good  to  mankind,  in  obedience  to 
the  will  of  God,  and  for  the  sake  of  everlasting  happiness" 

According  to  which  definition,  "  the  good  of  mankind,"  is 
the  subject ;  the  "  will  of  God,"  the  rule ;  and  "  everlasting 
happiness,"  the  motive,  of  human  virtue. 

Virtue  has  been  divided  by  some  moralists  into  benevolence, 
prudence,  fortitude,  and  temperance.  Benevolence  proposes 


HISTORY    OF    MORAL    PHILOSOPHY.  37 

good  ends ;  prudence  suggests  the  best  means  of  attaining 
them ;  fortitude  enables  us  to  encounter  the  difficulties,  dan- 
gers, and  discouragements,  which  stand  in  our  way  in  pursuit 
of  these  ends  ;  temperance  repels  and  overcomes  the  passions 
that  obstruct  it.  Benevolence,  for  instance,  prompts  us  to  un- 
dertake the  cause  of  an  oppressed  orphan  ;  prudence  suggests 
the  best  means  of  going  about  it ;  fortitude  enables  us  to  con- 
front the  danger,  and  bear  up  against  the  loss,  disgrace,  or 
repulse,  that  may  attend  our  undertaking ;  and  temperance 
keeps  under  the  love  of  money,  of  ease,  or  amusement,  which 
might  divert  us  from  it. 

Yirtue  is  distinguished  by  others  into  two  branches  only, 
prudence  and  'benevolence  /  prudence,  attentive  to  our  own 
interest ;  'benevolence,  to  that  of  our  fellow  creatures ;  both 
directed  to  the  same  end,  the  increase  of  happiness  in  nature ; 
and  taking  equal  concern  in  the  future  as  in  the  present. 

The  four  Cardinal  virtues  are  prudence,  fortitude,  temper- 
ance, and  justice. 

But  the  division  of  virtue,  to  which  we  are  in  modern  times 
most  accustomed,  is  into  duties  : 

Toward  God  ;  as  piety,  reverence,  resignation,  gratitude,  &c. 

Toward  other  men,  (or  relative  duties  ;)  as  justice,  charity, 
fidelity,  loyalty,  &c. 

Toward  ourselves ;  as  chastity,  sobriety,  temperance,  pre- 
servation of  life,  care  of  health,  &c. 

More  of  these  distinctions  have  been  proposed,  which  it  is 
not  worth  while  to  set  down. 

(3.)     PALEY'S  OPINION  OF  UTILITY. 

So  then  actions  are  to  be  estimated  by  their  tendency. 
Whatever  is  expedient  is  right.  It  is  the  utility  of  any  moral 
rule  alone,  which  constitutes  the  obligation  of  it. 

But  to  all  this  there  seems  a  plain  objection,  viz.  that  many 
actions  are  useful,  which  no  man  in  his  senses  will  allow 


38  HISTORY    OF    MORAL    PHILOSOPHY. 

to  be  right.  There  are  occasions  in  which  the  «hand  of 
the  assassin  would  be  very  useful.  The  present  possessor  of 
some  great  estate  employs  his  influence  and  fortune,  to  annoy, 
corrupt,  or  oppress  all  about  him.  His  estate  would  devolve, 
by  his  death,  to  a  successor  of  an  opposite  character.  It  is 
useful,  therefore,  to  dispatch  such  a  one  as  soon  as  possible 
out  of  the  way;  as  the  neighborhood  will  exchange  thereby 
a  pernicious  tyrant  for  a  wise  and  generous  benefactor.  It 
might  be  useful  to  rob  a  miser,  and  give  the  money  to  the 
poor,  as  the  mone}7,  no  doubt,  would  produce  more  happiness 
by  being  laid  out  in  food  and  clothing  for  half  a  dozen  dis- 
tressed families,  than  by  continuing  locked  up  in  a  miser's 
chest.  It  may  be  useful  to  get  possession  of  a  place,  a  piece 
of  preferment,  or  of  a  seat  in  Parliament,  by  bribery  or  false 
swearing :  as  by  means  of  them  we  may  serve  the  public 
more  effectually  than  in  our  private  station.  What  then  shall 
we  say  ?  Must  we  admit  these  actions  to  be  right,  which  would 
be  to  justify  assassination,  plunder,  and  perjury;  or  must 
we  give  up  our  principle,  that  the  criterion  of  right  is  utility? 

It  is  not  necessary  to  do  either. 

The  true  answer  is  this  ;  that  these  actions,  after  all,  are 
not  useful,  and  for  that  reason,  and  that  alone,  are  not  right. 

To  see  this  point  perfectly,  it  must  be  observed,  that  the 
bad  consequences  of  actions  are  Ivf  of  old,  particular  and  general. 

The  particular  bad  consequence  of  an  action  is  the  mischief 
which  that  simple  action  directly  and  immediately  occasions. 

The  general  bad  consequence  is  the  violation  of  some  ne- 
cessary or  useful  general  rule. 

Thus,  the  particular  bad  consequence  of  the  assassination 
above  described  is  the  fright  and  pain  which  the  deceased 
underwent ;  the  loss  he  suffered  of  life,  which  is  as  valuable 
to  a  bad  man  as  to  a  good  one,  or  more  so  ;  the  prejudice  and 
affliction  of  which  his  death  was  the  occasion,  to  his  family, 
friends,  and  dependents. 


PART    II. 
CRITICISM  OF  THEORIES  OF  MORALS. 


[This  portion  of  the  subject  being  fully  discussed  in  the  course  of  lectures,  for  the  most 
part  without  the  aid  of  authoritative  quotations,  the  compiler  refers  the  Student  to  the 
the  following  extracts  only.] 


(23.)     BISHOP  BUTLER'S  PROOF  OF  THE  EXISTENCE  OF  A  PRIN- 
CIPLE OF  BENEVOLENCE,  BESIDES  THAT  OF  SELF-LOVE. 

First,  There  is  a  natural  principle  of  'benevolence  in  man 
which  is  in  some  degree  to  society,  what  self -love  is  to  the  indi- 
vidual. And  if  there  be  in  mankind  any  disposition  to 
friendship ;  if  there  be  any  such  thing  as  compassion,  for 
compassion  is  momentary  love;  if  there  be  any  such  thing 
as  the  paternal  or  filial  affections  ;  if  there  be  any  affection 
in  human  nature,  the  object  and  end  of  which  is  the  good  of 
another ;  this  is  itself  benevolence,  or  the  love  of  another. 
Be  it  ever  so  short,  be  it  ever  so  low  a  degree,  or  ever  so  un- 
happily confined  ;  it  proves  the  assertion,  and  points  out  what 
we  were  designed  for,  as  really  as  though  it  were  in  a  higher 
degree  and  more  extensive.  I  must,  however,  remind  you, 
that  though  benevolence  and  self-love  are  different ;  though 
the  former  tends  most  directly  to  public  good,  and  the  latter 
to  private  ;  yet  they  are  so  perfectly  coincident,  that  the  great- 
est satisfactions  to  ourselves  depend  upon  our  having  benevo- 
lence in  a  due  degree  ;  and  that  self-love  is  one  chief  security  of 
our  right  behavior  towards  society.  It  may  be  added  that 
their  mutual  coinciding,  so  that  we  can  scarce  promote  one 
without  the  other,  is  equally  a  proof  that  we  were  made  for 
both.  1st  /Sermon  upon  Human  Nature,  p.  3. 


40  CRITICISM   OF  THEOEIE8   OF  MORALS. 

Second,  Self-love  and  interestedness  was  stated  to  consist 
in  or  be  an  affection  to  ourselves,  a  regard  to  our  own  private 
good  :  it  is,  therefore,  distinct  from  benevolence,  which  is  an 
affection  to  the  good  of  our  fellow-creatures.  But  that  benevo- 
lence is  distinct  from,  that  is,  not  the  same  thing  with  self-love, 
is  no  reason  for  its  being  looked  upon  with  any  peculiar  suspi- 
cion, because  every  principle  whatever,  by  means  of  which 
self-love  is  gratified,  is  distinct  from  it.  And  all  things,  which 
are  distinct  from  each  other,  are  equally  so.  A  man  has  an 
affection  or  aversion  to  another :  that  one  of  these  tends  to, 
and  is  gratified  by  doing  good,  that  the  other  tends  to,  and 
is  gratified  by  doing  harm,  does  not  in  the  least  alter  the 
respect  which  either  one  or  the  other  of  these  inward  feelings 
has  to  self-love.  We  use  the  word  property  so  as  to  exclude 
any  other  persons  having  an  interest  in  that,  of  which  we  say 
a  particular  man  has  the  property  :  and  we  often  use  the  word 
selfish  so  as  to  exclude  in  the  same  manner  all  regards  to  the 
good  of  others.  But  the  cases  are  not  parallel :  for  though 
that  exclusion  is  really  part  of  the  idea  of  property,  yet  such 
positive  exclusion,  or  bringing  this  peculiar  disregard  to  the 
good  of  others  into  the  idea  of  self-love,  is  in  reality  adding 
to  the  idea,  or  changing  it  from  what  it  was  before  stated,  to 
consist  in,  namely,  in  an  affection  to  ourselves.  This  being 
the  whole  idea  of  self-love,  it  can  no  otherwise  exclude  good- 
will or  love  of  others,  than  merely  by  not  including  it,  no 
otherwise  than  it  excludes  love  of  arts,  or  reputation,  or  of 
anything  else.  Neither,  on  the  other  hand,  does  benevolence, 
any  more  than  love  of  arts  or  of  reputation,  exclude  self-love. 
Love  of  our  neighbor,  then,  has  just  the  same  respect  to,  is  no 
more  distant  from  self-love,  than  hatred  of  our  neighbor,  or 
than  love  and  hatred  of  anything  else.  Thus  the  principles, 
from  which  men  rush  upon  certain  ruin  for  the  destruction  of 
an  enemy,  and  for  the  preservation  of  a  friend,  have  the  same 
respect  to  the  private  affection,  are  equally  interested,  or 


CRITICISM  OF  THEORIES  OF  MORALS.  41 

equally  disinterested ;  and  it  is  of  no  avail,  whether  they  are 
said  to  be  one  or  the  other.  Therefore,  to  those  who  are 
shocked  to  bear  virtue  spoken  of  as  disinterested,  it  may  be 
allowed,  tbat  it  is  indeed  absurd  to  speak  thus  of  it ;  unless 
hatred,  several  particular  instances  of  vice,  and  all  tbe  com- 
mon affections  and  aversions  in  mankind,  are  acknowledged 
to  be  disinterested  too.  Is  there  any  less  inconsistence  be- 
tween the  love  of  inanimate  things,  or  of  creatures  merely 
sensitive,  and  self-love,  than  between  self-love,  and  tthe  love 
of  our  neighbor?  Is  desire  of,  and  delight  in  the  happiness 
of  another  any  more  a  diminution  of  self-love,  than 
desire  of  and  delight  in  the  esteem  of  another?  They  ^ 
are  both  equally  desire  of  and  delight  in  somew4^t  ex-  ' 
ternal  to  ourselves :  either  both  or  neither  are  so.  The 
object  of  self-love  is  expressed  in  the  term  self:  and  every 
appetite  of  sense,  and  every  particular  affection  of  the  heart, 
are  equally  interested  or  disinterested,  because  the  objects  of 
them  all  are  equally  self  or  somewliat  <else.  Whatever  ridi- 
cule, therefore,  the  mention  of  a  disinterested  principle  or 
action  may  be  supposed  to  lie  open  to,  must,  upon  the  matter 
being  thus  stated,  relate  to  ambition,  and  every  appetite  and 
particular  affection,  as  much  as  to  benevolence.  And  indeed 
all  the  ridicule,  and  all  the  grave  perplexity,  of  which  this 
subject  hath  had  its  full  share,  is  merely  from  words.  The 
most  intelligible  way  of  speaking  of  it  seems  to  be  this  :  that 
self-love,  and  the  actions  done  in  consequence  of  it,  (for  these 
will  presently  appear  to  be  the  same  as  to  this  question,)  are 
interested  ;  that  particular  affections  towards  external  objects, 
and  the  actions  done  in  consequence  of  those  affections,  are 
not  so.  But  every  one  is  at  liberty  to  use  words  as  he  pleases. 
All  that  is  here  insisted  upon  is,  that  ambition,  revenge,  be- 
nevolence, all  particular  passions  whatever,  and  the  actions 
they  produce,  are  equally  interested  or  disinterested. 

Thus  it  appears,  that  there  is  no  peculiar  contrariety  between 


42  CRITICISM   OF  THEORIES   OF  MORALS. 

self-love  and  benevolence ;  no  greater  competition  between 
these,  than  between  any  other  particular  affections  and  self- 
love.  This  relates  to  the  affections  themselves.  Let  us  now 
see  whether  there  be  any  peculiar  contrariety  between  the 
respective  courses  of  life  which  these  affections  lead  to  ; 
whether  there  be  any  greater  competition  between  the  pursuit 
of  private  and  of  public  good,  than  between  any  other  partic- 
ular pursuits  and  that  of  private  good.  Sermon  11,  p.  119 
to  121. 

(24.)    EXTRACTS  FROM  DR.  THORNWELL'S   CRITICISM   OF   PA- 
LEY'S  SYSTEM  OF  MORALS. 

1.  Dr.  Thornwell  thus  condenses  the  theory  : 

"  From  this  brief  analysis,  Dr.  Paley's  whole  theory  of  morals 
may  be  compendiously  compressed  in  a  single  syllogism. 
Whatever  God  commands  is  right  or  obligatory.  "Whatever 
is  expedient  God  commands.  Therefore,  whatever  is  ex- 
pedient is  right.  The  major  proposition  rests  upon  his 
analysis  of  moral  obligation — the  minor  upon  the  proof 
of  the  Divine  benevolence,  and  the  substance  of  all  is  given 
in  his  remarkable  definition  of  virtue,  which,  logically, 
should  have  followed  the  exposition  of  expediency.  "Yir- 
tue  is  the  doing  good  to  mankind,  in  obedience  to  the 
will  of  God,  and  for  the  sake  of  everlasting  happiness." 
The  matter  of  virtue  is  expediency,  which  becomes  right  or 
obligatory,  because  it  is  commanded  by  God,  and  supported 
by  the  awful  sanctions  of  the  future  world. 

2.  He  thus  points  out  the  logical  fallacy : 

"  It  is  in  the  solution  of  this  inquiry  that  we  encounter  the 
central  principle  of  Dr.  Paley's  theory.  If  his  reasoning  here 
be  conclusive,  however  we  may  object  to  his  analysis  of  obli- 
gation, we  are  shut  up  to  the  adoption  of  his  favorite  maxim 
— that  whatever  is  expedient  is  right.  The  only  argument 
which  he  pretends  to  allege  in  vindication  of  this  sweeping 
dogma,  is  drawu  from  the  benevolence  of  God  ;  and  yet  that 
argument — though  I  do  not  know  that  the  blunder  has  ever 
been  particularly  exposed — is  a  logical  fallacy,  an  illicit  pro- 
cess of  the  minor  term.  What  he  had  proved  in  his  chapter 
on  Divine  benevolence  is,  that  God  wills  the  happiness  of  His 
creatures.  What  he  has  collected  from  his  analysis  of  obli- 


CKITICISM  OF  THEORIES   OF  MOEALS.  43 

gallon  is,  that  whatever  God  wills  is  right.  Put  these  premi- 
ses together,  and  they  j'ield  a  syllogism  in  the  third  figure, 
from  which  Dr.  Paley 's  conclusion  can  by  no  means  be  drawn. 

Whatever  God  wills  is  expedient. 

"Whatever  God  wills  is  right. 

Therefore,  says  Dr.  Paley,  whatever  is  expedient  is  right — 
an  illicit  process  of  the  minor  term.  Therefore,  is  the  true 
conclusion,  some  things  that  are  expedient  are  right — the 
third  figure  always  concluding  particularly. 

3.  He  thus  shows  how  this  School  falsifies  the  phenomena 
of  our  moral  nature  : 

1.  If  the  principles  which  it  postulates  are  all  that  are  neces- 
sary to  a  moral  agent,  brutes  would  be  as  truly  moral  agents 
as  men.     They  are  susceptible  of  pleasure  and  pain,  of  hope 
and  fear.     They  can  foresee,  to  some  extent,  the  consequences 
of  their  actions.     They  can  be  trained  and  disciplined  to  par- 
ticular qualities  and  habits.     The  government  which  man 
exercises  over  them   is  conducted  upon   the  same  principles 
with  which,  according  to  the  selfish  philosophers,  the  govern- 
ment of  God  is  administered  over  man.     It  exactly  answers  to 
Dr.  Paley 's  definition  of  a  moral  government — except  that  he 
restricts  it  to  reasonable  creatures,  without  any  necessity  from 
the  nature  of  the  case — "  any  dispensation  whose  object  is  to 
influence  the  conduct  of  reasonable  creatures."     A  system  of 
intimidation,  coaxing  and  persuasion — a  discipline  exclusively 
relying  upon  hope  and  fear — this  the  horse  can  be  subject  to 
that  fears  the  spur — the  dog  that  cringes  from  a  kick — any 
beast  that  can  be  trained  by  the  whip.    These  animals  obey 
their  master  from  the  same  motive  from  which  Dr.  Paley 
would  have  a  good  man  obey  his  God.     Now,  is  there  no  pe- 
culiarity in  our  moral  emotions  but  that  which  arises  from 
hope  and   fear  ?     Is   there  nothing  that  man  feels,  when  he 
acknowledges  the  authority  of  law,  which  the  brute  does  not 
also  feel  when  he  shrinks  from  the  lash  or  is  allured  by  ca- 
resses ?     Is  there  not  something  which  the  desire  of  pleasure 
and  the  reluctation  against  pain,  as  mere  physical  conditions, 
are  utterly  inadequate  to  explain  ?     "We  all  feel  that  the  brute 
differs  from  the  man,  and  differs  pre-eminently  in  this  very 
circumstance,  that  though  capable  of  being  influenced  by  mo- 
tives addressed  to  his  hopes  and  fears,  he  is  incapable  of  the 
notion   of  duty,  of  crime,  or  of  moral   obligation.     He  is  a 
physical,  but  not  a  moral  agent. 

2.  This  theory,  in  the  next  place,  contradicts  the  moral  con- 


44:  CRITICISM   OF  THEORIES   OF   MORALS. 

victions  of  mankind,  in  making  no  distinction  betwixt  inter- 
est an'd  duty,  betwixt  authority  and  might.  Nothing  can  be 
obligatory,  according  to  the  articulate  confession  of  Dr. 
Paley,  but  what  we  are  to  gain  or  lose  by  ;  and  the  only  ques- 
tion I  am  to  ask,  in  order  to  determine  whether  I  am 
bound  by  the  command  of  another,  is  whether  he  can  hurt  or 
bless  me.  His  right  depends  upon  his  power,  and  my  duty 
turns  upon  my  weakness  and  dependence. 

If  interest  is  duty,  and  power  is  right,  natural  ties,  whether 
of  blood  or  affection,  considerations  of  justice  and  humanity, 
relations,  original  or  adventitious,  are  all  to  be  discarded,  and 
every  moral  problem  becomes  only  a  frigid  calculation  of  loss 
and  gain.  No  elements  are  to  be  permitted  to  enter  into  its 
solution,  which  shall  disturb  the  coolness  of  the  mathematical 
computation.  All  moral  reasoning  is  reduced  to  arithmetic, 
and  a  man's  duty  is  determined  by  the  sum  at  the  foot  of  the 
account. 

Now,  if  there  be  any  two  things  about  which  the  conscous- 
ness  of  mankind  is  clear  and  distinct,  it  is  that  there  is  a  marked 
and  radical  difference  betwixt  interest  and  duty,  right  and 
might. 

The  distinction  betwixt  right  and  might,  betwixt  unjust 
usurpation  and  lawful  authority,  is  manifestly  something  far 
deeper  than  the  distinction  betwixt  a  lower  and  a  higher  in- 
terest. It  is  not  the  sword  which  justifies  the  magistrate — it 
is  the  magistrate  which  justifies  the  sword. 

All  men  feel  that  the  right  to  command  is  one  thing,  the 
power  to  hurt  another — that  there  can  be  no  obligation  to 
obey,  although  it  may  be  the  dictate  of  policy,  where  force  is 
is  the  only  basis  of  authority.  The  language  of  all  men 
marks  the  difference  betwixt  the  usurper  and  the  lawful  ruler, 
the  tyrant  and  the  just  magistrate ;  and  any  system  which  ig- 
nores or  explains  away  this  natural  and  necessary  distinction, 
contradicts  the  moral  phenomena  of  our  nature. 

3.  The  theory  of  Paley  is  liable  to  still  further  exception,  as 
taking  no  account  of  the  conviction  of  good  and  ill  desert  and 
the  peculiar  emotions  which  constitute  and  spring  from  the 
consciousness  of  guilt  or  accompany  the  consciousness  of  right. 
The  slightest  attention  to  the  operations  of  his  own  mind  must 
satisfy  every  one  that  the  approbation  of  virtue  and  the  dis- 
approbation of  vice  include  much  more  than  a  simple  sensa- 
tion of  pleasure,  analogous  to  that  which  arises  from  the  con- 
gruity  of  an  object  to  an  appetite,  affection  or  desire.  It  is 
more  than  the  pleasure  which  springs  from  the  perception  of 


CRITICISM  OF  THEORIES   OF  MORALS.  45 

utility  or  of  the  fitness  of  means  to  accomplish  an  end  It  is 
a  peculiar  emotion — an  emotion  which  we  are  not  likely  to 
confound  with  any  other  phenomenon  of  our  nature.  It  is  a 
feeling  that  the  agent,  in  a  virtuous  action,  deserves  to  be  re- 
warded, accompanied  with  the  dfsife  to  see  him  rewarded,  and 
the  expectation  that  he  will  be  rewarded.  The  agent  in  a 
vicious  action,  on  the  contrary,  we  feel  is  deserving  of  pun- 
ishment, and  we  confidently  expect  that,  sooner  or  later,  he 
will  receive  his  due. 

A  theory  which  annihilates  the  distinction  between  rewards 
and  favors,  between  punishment  and  misfortune,  is  at  war 
with  the  fundamental  dictates  of  our  nature.  It  sweeps  away 
that  very  characteristic  by  which  we  are  rendered  capable  of 
government,  as  distinct  from  discipline.  It  confounds  remorse 
with  simple  regret,  and  the  approbation  of  conscious  recti- 
tude with  the  pleasure  which  springs  from  the  gratification 
of  any  other  feeling  or  desire.  It  denies,  in  other  words,  that 
in  any  just  and  proper  sense  of  the  terms  we  can  be  denomi- 
nated moral  agents.  The  very  element  in  the  phenomenon, 
which  makes  a  judgment  to  be  moral,  is  left  out  or  overlooked. 

4.  But  it  deserves  further  to  be  remarked,  that  the  theory  in 
question,  especially  as  expounded  by  Dr.  Paley,  makes  no 
manner  of  difference,  as  to  their  general  nature,  betwixt  the 
obligation  to  virtue  and  a  temptation  to  vice.  There  is  noth- 
ing in  either  case  but  a  strong  inducement,  derived  from  ap- 
pearances of  good.  A.  violent  motive,  we  are  told,  is  the  ge- 
nus and  the  command  of  a  superior,  the  specific  difference  of 
obligation.  The  violent  motive,  the  genus,  is  found  in  temp- 
tation ;  the  specific  difference  is  wanting.  Hence  temptation 
is  clearly  a  species  co-ordinate  with  duty.  The  bad  man  is 
enticed  by  his  lusts,  and  yields  to  those  passions  which  prom- 
ise him  enjoyment — his  end  is  pleasure.  The  good  man  is 
allured  by  computations  which  put  this  same  pleasure  at  the 
foot  of  the  account.  They  are  consequently  governed  by  the 
same  general  motive,  and  the  only  difference  betwixt  them  is 
that  the  one  has  a  sounder  judgment  than  the  other.  They 
have  equally  obeyed  the  same  law  of  pleasure,  but  have  form- 
ed a  different  estimate  of  the  pursuits  and  objects  that  shall 
yield  the  largest  amount  of  gratification.  Temptation,  accor- 
dingly, may  be  called  an  obligation  to  vice,  and  duty  a  temp- 
tation to  virtue.  Who  does  not  feel  that  the  difference  is 
more  than  accidental  betwixt  these  states  of  the  mind  ;  that 
the  motives  to  virtue  and  the  seductions  of  sin  operate  upon 
principles  entirely  distinct,  and  have  nothing  in  common  but 
the  circumstance  of  their  appeal  to  our  active  nature.  They 


4:6  CRITICISM  OF  THEORIES  OF  MORALS. 

are  essentially  different  states  of  mind,  and  the  theory  which 
co-ordinates  them  under  the  same  genus  prevaricates  with 
consciousness  in  its  clearest  manifestations. 

5.  The  last  general  objection  which  I  shall  notice  to  Dr.  Pa- 
ley's  system,  is  its  impracticability.  His  fundamental  principle 
cannot  be  employed  as  the  criterion  of  duty,  from  the  obvious 
impossibility  of  estimating  the  collected  consequences  of  any 
given  action.  The  theory  is  that  morality  depends  upon  re- 
sults ;  the  circumstance  which  determines  an  action  to  be 
right  is  its  being  upon  the  whole  productive  of  more  happi- 
ness than  misery.  It  must,  consequently,  be  traced  in  its 
entire  history,  through  time  and  eternity,  before  any  moral 
judgment  can  be  confidently  affirmed  in  regard  to  it.  "What 
human  faculties  are  competent  for  such  calculations  ?  "What 
mind  but  that  of  God  can  declare  the  end  from  the  beginning, 
and  from  ancient  times  the  things  that  are  not  yet  done  ?  The 
government  of  God,  both  natural  and  moral,  is  one  vast  com- 
plicated system  ;  the  relations  of  its  parts  are  so  multifarious 
and  minute — the  connections  of  events  so  numerous  and  hid- 
den— that  only  the  mind  which  planned  the  scheme  can  ade- 
quately compass  it.  He  knows  nothing  of  it,  as  Bishop  But- 
ler has  remarked,  "  who  is  not  sensible  of  his  ignorance  in  it." 
To  be  able  to  estimate  all  the  consequences  of  any  given  action 
is  to  be  master  of  the  entire  system  of  the  universe,  not 
merely  in  the  general  principles  which  govern  it,  but  in  all 
the  details  of  every  single  event.  It  is  to  have  the  knowledge 
of  the  Almighty.  Thornwells  JZeview  of  Paley^s  Moral 
Philosophy. 


PART  m. 
SPECULATIYE   MORALS. 


"Going  over  the  theory  of  Virtue  in  one's  thoughts;  talking  well  and  drawing  fine  pic- 
tures of  it,  this  is  so  far  from  necessarily  or  certainly  conducing  to  form  a  habit  of  it  in 
him,  who  thus  employs  himself,  that  it  miy  harden  the  mind  in  a  contrary  course,  and 
render  it  gradually  more  insensible,  t.  e.,  form  a  habit  of  insensibility  to  all  moral  consid 
orations."— .Buffer's  Analogy. 


(25.)    DEFINITION  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

Natural  law,  in  its  widest  sense,  (lex  naturce,)  is  applied  to 
those  rules  of  duty  which  spring  from  the  nature  and  consti- 
tution of  man.  There  are  those  who  maintain  that  the  dis- 
tinctions of  right  and  wrong  are  the  arbitrary  creatures  of 
positive  institutions — "  that  things  honorable,  and  things  just 
admit  of  such  vast  difference  and  uncertainty,  that  they  seem 
to  exist  by  statute  only,  and  not  in  the  nature  of  things."  In 
opposition  to  this  theory,  it  is  maintained  that  the  moral  differ- 
ences of  things,  are  eternal  and  indestructible,  and  that  the 
knowledge  of  them,  in  their  great  primordial  principles,  is  an 
essential  part  of  the  original  furniture  of  the  mind.  Man  is  a 
law  to  himself;  from  his  very  make  and  structure,  he  is  a 
moral  and  responsible  being,  and  those  rules,  which,  in  the 
progress  and  development  of  his  moral  faculties,  he  is  led  to 
apprehend  as  data  of  conscience,  together  with  the  conclusions 
which  legitimately  flow  from  them,  are  denominated  laws  of 
nature.  They  belong  to  inherent,  essential  morality,  in  con  - 
tradistinction  to  what  is  positive  and  instituted.  The  comple- 


48  SPECULATIVE  MOKALS. 

ment  of  these  rules  is  called  right  reason,  practical  reason, 
and  by  Jeremy  Taylor,  legislative  reason.  Hence  that  of  Cic- 
ero :  "  Est  quidem  vera  lex  recta  ratio"  Noble  as  this  pas- 
sage is,  a  much  greater  than  Cicero  has  declared  that  man  is 
a  law  unto  himself,  and  that  those  who  are  destitute  of  an 
external  communication  from  heaven,  have  yet  an  internal 
teacher  to  instruct  them  in  the  will  of  God.  The  dictates  of 
conscience  are  denominated  laws,  from  the  authority  with 
which  they  are  felt  to  speak ;  they  are  manifested  in  conscious- 
ness as  commands,  and  not  as  speculative  perceptions  ;  they 
are  laws,  of  nature,  because  they  are  founded  in  the  nature 
of  things/and  are  enounced  through  the  nature  of  the  mind. 

In  a  narrower  sense,  natural  law  (jus  naturce)  denotes  the 
body  of  rights  which  belong  to  man  as  man,  which  spring 
from  his  constitution  as  a  social  and  responsible  being,  and 
which  consequently  attach  to  all  men  in  the  same  relations 
and  circumstances.  In  this  it  coincides  with  natural  juris- 
prudence, as  distinguished  from  the  municipal  regulations  of 
States  and  nations. 

In  a  still  narrower  sense,  natural  law  is  restricted  to  those 
principles  or  rules  which  should  determine  the  duties  of  men 
in  times  of  revolution,  or  under  oppressive  and  tyrannical 
governments,  or  regulate  the  intercourse  of  independent 
States  and  nations.  In  none  of  these  senses  does  natural  law 
coincide  precisely  with  moral  philosophy.  In  the  first  sense, 
it  may  be  said  that  the  conclusions  of  moral  philosophy  are 
natural  laws ;  they  are  the  results  of  its  investigations,  the  end 
of  its  inquiries.  In  the  second  sense,  the  view  of  human  na- 
ture is  too  limited  for  a  complete  philosophy  of  the  moral  con- 
stitution. "  Right  and  duty,"  as  Dr.  Reid  has  remarked, 
"are  things  different,  and  have  even  a  kind  of  opposition  ; 
yet  they  are  so  related  that  one  cannot  even  be  conceived 
without  the  other ;  and  he  that  understands  the  one  must  un- 
derstand the  other."  Hence  it  happens,  that  although  the  in- 


SPECULATIVE   MOEALS.  49 

quiries  of  natural  jurisprudence  begin  at  a  different  point 
from  those  of  the  moral  philosopher,-  they  eventually  traverse 
the  same  ground,  and  meet  in  the  same  practical  conclusions. 
Still,  natural  jurisprudence  is  only  one  branch  of  moral  inves- 
tigations ;  and  it  has  only  been  by  an  unwarrantable  extension 
of  its  terms,  that  it  has  been  made  to  cover  almost  the  entire 
domain  of  duties  to  our  fellow  men."  ThornweWs  Review 
of  Paley^s  Moral  Philosophy. 

(26.)     Two   METHODS  OF  TREATING  THE  SUBJECT  OF  MORALS. 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  the  subject  of  morals  may  be 
treated.  One  begins  from  inquiring  into  the  abstract  relations 
of  things  ;  the  other,  from  a  matter  of  fact,  namely,  what  the 
particular  nature  of  man  is,  its  several  parts,  their  economy 
or  constitution;  from  whence  it  proceeds  to  determine  what 
course  of  life  it  is,  which  is  correspondent  to  this  whole  na- 
ture. In  the  former  method  the  conclusion  is  expressed  thus, 
that  vice  is  contrary  to  the  nature  and  reasons  of  things  ;  in 
the  latter,  that  it  is  a  violation  or  breaking  in  upon  our 
own  nature.  Thus  they  both  lead  us  to  the  same  thing,  our 
obligations  to  the  practice  of  virture  ;  and  thus  they  exceed- 
ingly strengthen  and  enforce  each  other.  The  first  seems  the 
most  direct  and  formal  proof,  and  in  some  respects  the  least 
liable  to  cavil  and  dispute  :  the  latter  is  in  a  peculiar  man- 
ner adapted  to  satisfy  a  fair  mind,  and  is  more  easily  appli- 
cable to  the  several  particular  relations  and  circumstances  in 
life. — Butlers  Preface  to  Sermons. 

(27.)    THERE  is  A  PRINCIPLE  IN  MAN  WHICH  WE  CALL  CON- 
SCIENCE. 

There  is  a  principle  of  reflection  in  men,  by  which  they 
distinguish  between,  approve,  and  disapprove  their  own 
actions.  We  are  plainly  constituted  such  sort  of  creatures  as 
to  reflect  upon  our  own  nature.  The  mind  can  take  a  view 

7 


50  SPECULATIVE  MOEALS. 

of  what  passes  within  itself,  its  propensions,  aversions,  pas- 
sions, affections,  as  respecting  such  objects,  and  in  such  de- 
grees, and  of  the  several  actions  consequent  thereupon.  In 
this  survey  it  approves  of  one,  disapproves  of  another,  and 
towards  a  third  is  affected  in  neither  of  these  ways,  but  is 
quite  indifferent.  This  principle  in  man,  by  which  he  ap- 
proves or  disapproves  Ids  heart,  temper,  and  actions,  is  con- 
science ;  for  this  is  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  though 
sometimes  it  is  used  so  as  to  take  in  more.  And  that  this 
faculty  tends  to  restrain  men  from  doing  mischief  to  each 
other,  and  leaves  them  to  do  good,  is  too  manifest  to  need 
being  insisted  upon.  Thus,  a  parent  has  the  affection  of  love 
to  his  children  :  this  .leads  him  to  take  care  of,  to  educate,  to 
make  due  provision  for  them.  The  natural  affection  leads  to 
this ;  but  the  reflection  that  it  is  his  proper  business,  what 
belongs  to  him,  that  it  is  right  and  commendable  so  to 
do :  this,  added  to  the  affection  becomes  a  much  more  set- 
tled principle,  and  carries  him  on  through  more  labor  and 
difficulties  for  the  sake  of  his  children,  than  he  would  undergo 
for  that  affection  alone,  if  he  thought  it,  and  the  course  of 
action  it  led  to,  either  indifferent  or  criminal.  This,  indeed, 
is  impossible, — to  do  that  which  is  good,  and  not  to  approve 
of  it ;  for  which  reason  they  are  frequently  not  considered  as 
distinct,  though  they  really  are :  for  men  often  approve  of 
the  actions  of  others,  which  they  will  not  imitate,  and  like- 
wise do  that  which  they  approve  not.  It  cannot  possibly  be 
denied,  that  there  is  this  principle  of  reflection  or  conscience 
in  human  nature.  Suppose  a  man  to  relieve  an  innocent  per- 
son in  great  distress ;  suppose  the  same  man  afterwards,  in 
the  fury  of  anger,  to  do  the  greatest  mischief  to  a  person  who 
had  given  no  just  cause  of  offence;  to  aggravate  the  injury, 
add  the  circumstances  of  former  friendship,  and  obligation, 
from  the  injured  person  :  let  the  man  who  is  supposed  to  have 
done  those  two  different  actions  cooly  reflect  upon  them  after- 


SPECULATIVE   MORALS.  51 

wards,  without  regard  to  their  consequences  to  himself; — to 
assert  that  any  common  man  would  be  affected  in  the  same 
way  towards  these  different  actions,  that  he  would  maks  no 
distinction  between  them,  but  approve  or  disapprove  them 
equally,  is  too  glaring  a  falsity  to  need  being  confuted. — 
There  is  therefore  this  principle  of  reflection  or  conscience  in 
mankind.  It  is  needless  to  compare  the  respect  it  has  to  pri- 
vate good,  with  the  respect  it  has  to  public  ;  since  it  plainly 
tends  as  much  to  the  latter  as  to  the  former,  and  is  commonly 
thought  to  tend  chiefly  to  the  latter.  This  faculty  is  now 
mentioned  merely  as  another  part  of  the  inward  frame  of 
man,  pointing  out  to  us  in  some  degree  what  we  are  intended 
for,  and  as  what  will  naturally  and  of  course  have  some  in- 
fluence. The  particular  place  assigned  to  it  by  nature,  what 
authority  it  has,  and  how  great  influence  it  ought  to  have, 
shall  be  hereafter  considered.  Butlers  Sermon  on  Human 
Nature. 

(28.)    M'Cosn's  ANALYSIS  OF   CONSCIENCE — CONSCIENCE  AS  A 

LAW. 

1.  Conscience  may  ~be  considered  as  a  law. — We  believe 
it  to  be  an  original,  a  divinely  implanted,  and  a  fundamental 
law.  Still,  though  persons  could  succeed  in  analysing  it,  it 
would  not  the  less  be  a  law.  Take  even  the  views  of  Brown 
and  Mackintosh,  meagre  though  fhey  appear  to  us  to  be,  and 
suppose  that  there  is  nothing  else  in  the  mind  when  contem- 
plating moral  actions,  but  the  springing  up  of  emotions,  still 
there  must  be  a  heaven-appointed  law,  otherwise  the  emo- 
tions would  not  be  so  invariable.  Those  who  resolve  con- 
science into  a  mere  class  of  emotions  cannot  thereby  free 
themselves  from  assuming  the  existence  of  a  law,  the  law 
according  to  which  the  emotions  are  produced.  Those  again, 
who  regard  it  as  a  faculty  must  assume  a  rule,  as  the  basis  of 
its  operations.  "Upon  whatever,"  says  Adam  Smith,  "we 
suppose  that  our  moral  faculties  are  founded,  whether  upon  a 
certain  modification  of  reason,  upon  an  original  instinct  called 
a  moral  sense,  or  on  some  other  principle  of  our  nature,  it 
cannot  be  doubted  that  they  are  given  us  for  the  direction  of 


52  SPECULATIVE   MORALS. 

our  conduct  in  this  life."     "  The  rules,  therefore,  which  they 

S 'escribe  are  to  be  regarded  as  the  command  and  laws  of  the 
eitj,  promulgated  by  those  vicegerents  which  he  has  set  up 
within  us." 

It  was  under  tin's  aspect  that  the  ancients  delighted  to  con- 
template the  moral  faculty,  as  in  the  well-known  passage  of 
Cicero, — "  right  reason  is  itself  a  law,  congenial  to  'the  feel- 
ings of  nature  diffused  among  all  other  men,  uniform,  eternal, 
calling  us  imperiously  to  our  duty,  and  peremptorily  prohibi- 
ting every  violation  of  it."  "Xor  does  it  speak  one  lan- 
guage at  Rome,  and  another  at  Athens,  varying  from  place  to 
place,  or  from  time  to  time  ;  but  it  addresses  itself  to  all  na- 
tions and  to  all  ages,  deriving  its  authority  from  the  common 
sovereign  of  the  universe,  and  carrying  home  its  sanctions  to 
every  breast  by  the  inevitable  punishment  which  it  inflicts  on 
transgressors."  It  is  under  this  same  view  that  it  is  presented 
to  us  by  a  still  higher  authority, — "They  who  have  no  law 
(no  written  law)  are  a  law  unto  themselves,  which  shows  the 
law  written  ir?  their  hearts."  It  is  under  this  same  aspect  that 
the  profound  German  metaphysician  represents  it  when  he 
talks  of  categorical  imperative.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that 
some  later  ethical  writers  have  very  much  lost  sight  of  this 
view  of  conscience,  though  perhaps  the  most  important  that 
can  be  taken. 

We  have  but  to  pause  and  seriously  reflect  for  an  instant,  to 
discover  that  great  advantages  must  arise  from  morality  assu- 
ming the  form  of  a  law.  if.  is  in  this  character  that  it  acquires 
a  clearly  defined,  a  solid  and  consistent  shape,  and  an  authori- 
tative power.  As  a  law,  it  has  its  clear  precepts  its  binding 
obligations,  and  its  solemn  sanctions.  When  it  is  presented 
merely  as  a  sentiment,  we  have  an  impression  as  if  it  might 
vary  with  change  of  circumstances,  or  with  man's  varied  feel- 
ings, and  we  might  be  tempted,  with  Rousseau,  to  recommend 
as  right  whatever  our  feelings  impelled  us  to.  But  in  ac- 
knowledging it  as  a  law,  we  placed  it  above  everything  that  is 
fleeting  and  variable,  and  give  it  an  independent,  an  un- 
changeable, and  eternal  authority. 

The  moral  law  serves  the  same  purpose,  but  in  an  infinitely 
higher  degree  in  the  government  of  intelligent  and  responsi- 
ble beings,  as  physical  law  does  in  regard  to  inanimate  objects 
and  the  brute  creation,  i  All  the  Works  of  God  seem  to  be 
under  law  of  some  kind.  The  heavens  and  the  earth  obey 
the  ordinances  of  God's  appointment,  and  the  lower  animals 
are  led  by  the  instincts, with  which  the  Creator  has  endowed 


SPECULATIVE  MORALS.  53 

them.  When  we  ascend  the  scale  of  creation,  we  find  that 
Gud's  intelligent  and  responsible  creatures  are  still  under  law, 
but  that  law  of  a  higher  kind,  a  moral  law  summed  up  in 
love.  This  law  is  the  golden  chain  by  which  the  governor  of 
the  universe  binds  his  intelligent  creatures  to  himself  and  to 
one  another.  It  is  the  royal  law  of  love,  worthy  of  God,  who 
is  love,  and  fitted  to  make  those  who  obey  it  supremely  happy 
in  themselves  and  in  the  enjoyment  of  God.  In  the  obser- 
vance of  that  law,  God  is  glorified,  and  the  creature  is  un- 
speakably blessed.  In  the  breaking  of  that  law,  the  God 
who  appointed  it  is  dishonored,  and  the  transgressor  lands 
himself  in  guilt  and  misery. 

As  it  is  advantageous  to  put  morality  on  the  footing  of  a 
law,  it  is  no  less  beneficial  that  this  law  should  be  written 
upon  the  heart.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  it  could  have  any 
power  over  any  given  individual,  except  by  its  having  a  place 
in  the  inner  man.  But  does  some  one  suggest  that  it  might 
be  communicated  orally,  or  in  writing,  to  the  creature  by  the 
Creator?  Xo  one,  who  has  seriously  reflected  on  the  subject, 
will  deny  that  much  benefit  may  be  derived  from  the  posses- 
sions of  such  a  law,  spoken  or  written.  But  such  an  outward 
law  does  not  render  an  inward  principle  unnecessary.  For 
the  question  presses  itself  upon  us,  why  are  we  bound  to  obey 
this  law  ?  It  is  answered,  because  it  is  good  ? — the  farther 
question  is  now  raised,  how  do  we  know  it  to  be  good?  Or 
is  it  answered,  that  we  are  bound  to  obey  it,  because  of  the 
very  relation  in  which  we  stand  to  God,  we  have  thereby 
moved  the  difficulty  but  a  step  back,  for  the  question  sug- 
gests itself,  why  are  we  bound  to  obey  God  ?  We  are  bound 
to  obey  God,  solely  because  of  a  moral  relation  ;  and  there 
must  be  an  internal  law  to  inform  us  of  that  relation.  It  thus 
appears,  that  every  outward  law  conducts  us  to  an  inward 
principle,  from  which  it  receives  its  sanction. 

Such  an  internal  principle  or  law  written  in  the  heart,  if 
only  in  healthy  exercise,  must  possess  many  advantages  over 
a  mere  written  or  verbal  law.  It  is  quick,  ready,  and  instant. 
It  acts  as  a  constant  monitor.  It  lies  at  the  seat  of  the  will 
and  the  affections ;  and  is  ready  to  operate  upon  both.  But 
while  it  is  in  its  very  nature  anterior  and  superior  to  an  out- 
ward law,  it  may  yet  be  greatly  aided  by  such  a  law.  Those 
who  possess  the  inward  principle,  will  find  consistency  and  " 
stability  imparted  to  their  conduct,  by  their  embodying  the 
dictates  of  that  principle  in  a  code  of  precepts.  It  is  con- 
ceivable, therefore,  that  the  possession  of  the  internal  monitor 


54  SPECULATIVE  MORALS. 

may  not  supersede  the  development  of  positive  command- 
ments, even  among  holy  intelligences.  And  when  the  con- 
science is  perverted,  or  when  it  is  not  in  a  lively  state,  it  is 
absolutely  necessary,  in  order  to  its  rectification,  that  there  be 
an  outward  law  embodying,  clearly  and  correctly,  the  will  of 
God,  and  acting  the  same  part  as  the  dial,  when  it  rectifies 
the  disordered  time-piece. 

Not  only  is  conscience  a  law,  it  is,  as  Butler  has  shown, 
the  supreme  law.  Subject  only  to  God,  it  reviews  all  the 
actions  of  the  responsible  agent,  and  is  itself  reviewed  by 
none.  It  is  the  highest  judicatory  in  the  human  mind,  judg- 
ing all,  and  being  judged  of  none  ;  admitting  of  appeal  from 
all,  and  admitting  ot  no  appeal  from  itself  to  any  other  hu- 
man tribunal.  The  conscience  is  a  universal  arbiter,  for  all 
dispositions  and  voluntary  acts  pass  under  its  notice.  It  is 
immutable,  for  it  pronounces  its  judgments  upon  an  unchange- 
able law.  It  is  supreme,  for  while  it  submits  to  none  other, 
it  judges  of  the  exercises  of  all  the  other  faculties  and  affec- 
tions of  the  mind. 

2.  The  conscience  may  ~be  considered-  as  a  faculty. — In 
doing  so,  we  are  not  viewing  it  under  an  aspect  inconsist- 
ent with  that  under  which  we  have  just  been  contemplating 
it.  For  every  quality  and  every  faculty  has  a  rule  of  opera- 
tion, which  may  be  described  as  its  law.  The  conscience, 
from  its  nature  may  be  held  as  embracing  within  it,  in  a 
peculiar  manner,  a  law  as  the  rule  of  its  exercise  ;  and  this, 
as  we  have  seen,  a^law  of  a  very  authoritative  character. 
But  while  we  view  it  as  a  law,  we  are  not  the  less  to  view  it 
as  a  faculty,  of  which  this  law  is  but  the  function  or  the  ex- 
ponent. 

Some  later  ethical  and  metaphysical  writers,  we  are  aware, 
have  maintained  that  there  is  no  judgment  passed  by  the  mind 
on  moral  relations  being  presented  to  it.  The  whole  mental 
process  is  represented  as  being  one  of  the  emotions,  and  not 
of  the  judgment  or  reason.  And  it  is  at  once  to  be  acknowl- 
edged, that  if  we  define  the  reason  or  understanding  as  the 
power  or  powers  which  distinguish  between  the  true  and  the 
false,  or  which  judge  of  relations,  as  of  the  resemblances  and 
differences  of  objects,  we  must  place  morality  altogether  be- 
yond its  jurisdiction.  Perceptions  of  this  kind  are  in  their 
whole  nature  different  from  the  perceptions  of  the  difference 
between  right  and  wrong — between  duty  and  sin.  But  if  it 
be  meant  to  affirm,  that  when  the  voluntary  acts  of  responsi- 
ble beings  pass  in  review  before  the  mind,  it  does  not  pro- 


SPECULATIVE    MOEALS.  55 

nounce  a  judgment  or  decision,  then  we  cannot  but  hold  the 
view  to  be  inconsistent  with  our  consciousness,  and  as  far 
from  being  well-fitted  to  furnish  a  foundation  to  a  proper 
ethical  theory.  Just  as  the  mind,  on  certain  purely  intellec- 
tual propositions  being  presented  to  it,  says,  "  this  is'  true," 
or  "  this  is  false  ;"  so  we  find  it  on  the  voluntary  actions  of  in- 
telligent beings  being  presented  to  it,  declaring,  "  this  is 
right,"  or  "  this  is  wrong." 

The  parties  who  are  most  inclined  to  remove  morality  from 
the  region  of  the  understanding,  such  as  Brown  and  Mack- 
intosh, are  often  constrained  to  speak  of  the  moral  faculty, 
and  to  talk  of  its  decisions  and  judgements.  The  very  lan- 
guage which  they  use,  in  speaking  of  the  emotions  which  are 
supposed  by  them  to  constitute  the  whole  mental  process — the 
emotions,  as  they  call  them,  of  moral  approbation  and  disap- 
probations— seems  to  imply  that  there  mast  be  a  judgment  of 
the  mind.  If  approbation  and  disapprobation  are  not  judg- 
ments, we  know  riot  what  can  constitute  a  judgment  of  the 
mind.  "  We  cannot,"  says  Butler,  "  form  a  notion  of  this 
faculty,  without  taking  in  judgment."  Nor  is  it  possible  to 
find  language  expressive  of  the  mental  phenomena  which 
does  not  imply,  that  along  with  the  emotion,  there  is  a  judg- 
ment come  to,  and  a  decision  pronounced  ;  and  it  would  be 
confounding  the  different  departments  of  the  human  mind 
altogether,  to  refer  such  a  judgment  to  our  emotional  nature, 
or  mere  sensibility. 

We  apprehend  a  mathematical  proposition,  and  we  declare 
it  to  be  true  ;  here  there  is  acknowledged  on  all  hands  to  be 
judgment.  We  apprehend  next  instant  a  cruel,  ungenerous 
action  ;  and  we  declare  it  to  be  wrong.  Now,  in  the  one  case, 
as  in  the  other,  there  is  a  judgment  of  the  mind.  It  is  true, 
that  in  the  two  cases,  the  judgments  are  pronounced  accord- 
ing to  very  different  principles  or  laws — so  very  different  as 
to  justify  us  in  speaking  of  the  conscience  as  different  from 
the  reason.  It  is  quite  conceivable  that  the  mind  might  pos- 
sess reason,  and  distinguish  between  the  true  and  the  false, 
and  yet  be  incapable  of  distinguishing  between  virtue  and 
vice.  We  are  entitled  therefore  to  hold,  that  the  drawing  of 
moral  distinctions  is  not  comprehended  in  the  simple  exercise 
of  the  reason.  The  conscience,  in  short,  is  a  different  faculty 
of  the  rnind  from  the  mere  understanding.  We  must  hold  it 
to  be  simple  and  un resolvable,  till  we  fall  in  with  a  successful 
decomposition  of  it  into  its  elements.  In  the  absence  of  any 
such  decomposition,  we  hold  that  there  are  no  simpler  ele- 


56  SPECULATIVE   MORALS. 

ments  in  the  human  mind  which  will  yield  us  the  ideas  ot 
the  morally  good  and  evil,  of  moral  obligation  and  guilt,  of 
merit  and  demerit.  Compound  and  decompound  all  other 
ideas  as  you  please — associate  them  together  as  you  may— 
they  will  never  give  us  the  ideas  referred  to,  so  peculiar  and 
full  of  meaning,  without  a  faculty  implanted  in  the  mind  for 
this  very  purpose. 

3.  Conscience  may  ~be  considered  as  possessing  a  class  of 
emotions,  or  as  a  sentiment. — We  have  endeavored,  indeed, 
to  show  that  it  is  not  a  mere  emotion,  or  class  of  emotions. 
But  while  it  is  something  more  than  a  "class  of  feelings," — • 
it  is  so  described  by  Mackintosh — it  does  most  assuredly  con- 
tain and  imply  feelings.  The  mind  is  as  conscious  of  the 
emotions  as  it  is  of  the  judgment. 

In  opposition  to  those  who  insist  that  there  is  nothing  but 
emotion,  it  might  be  urged,  in  a  general  way,  that  emotions 
never  exist  independently  of  certain  conceptions  or  ideas.— 
Let  a  man  stop  himself  at  the  time  when  emotion  is  the  high- 
est and  passion  the  strongest,  and  he  will  find  as  the  substra- 
tum of  the  whole,  a  certain  apprehension  or  conception  formed 
by  the  faculties  of  the  mind.  There  is  an  idea  acting  as  the 
basis  of  every  feeling,  and  so  far  determining  the  "feeling: 
and  the  feeling  rises  or  falls  according  as  the  conception  takes 
in  more  or  less  of  that  which  raises  the  emotions.  The  ideas 
which  raise  emotions  have  been  called  (by  Alison  in  his 
Essay  on  Taste)  "  ideas  of  emotions/' 

The  conception  of  certain  objects  is  no  way  fitted  to  raise 
emotions.  The  conception,  for  instance,  of  an  angle,  or  of  a 
stone,  or  a  house,  will  not  excite  any  emotions  whatever. 
Other  conceptions  do  as  certainly  raise  emotions,  as  the  con- 
ception of  an  object  as  about  to  communicate  pleasure  or  pain. 
Such  feelings  arise  whether  we  contemplate  this  pleasure  or 
pain  as  about  to  visit  ourselves  or  others. 

Emotion  rises  not  only  on  the  contemplation  of  pleasure 
and  pain  to  ourselves  or  others,  it  rises  also  on  the  contem- 
plation of  virtue  and  vice.  When  the  conscience  declares  an 
action  presented  to  the  mind  to  be  good  or  bad,  certain  emo- 
tions instantly  present  themselves.  Man  is  so  constituted 
that  the  contemplation  of  virtuous  and  vicious  action — declared 
so  to  be  by  the  conscience — like  the  contemplation  of  pleasure 
and  pain,  awakens  the  sensibility. 

While  thus  the  conception  determines  the  emotions — does 
not  constitute  them,  however — it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that 
emotions  have  a  most  powerful  influence  upon  the  current  of 


SPECULATIVE  MOKALS.  57 

the  thoughts  and  ideas.  The  emotions  may  be  compared  to 
fluids  which  press  equally  in  all  directions,  and  need,  there- 
fore, a  vessel  to  contain  them,  or  a  channel  formed  in  which 
they  may  flow ;  but  like  these  fluids,  they  yield  the  strongest 
of  all  pressure,  and  serve  most  important  purposes  in  the 
economy  ot  life. 

Upon  these  general  grounds,  then,  we  would  be  inclined  to 
assert  that  there  must  be  the  decision  of  a  faculty  before  there 
can  be  a  feeling  in  regard  to  moral  actions.  "  At  the  same 
time,"  says  Cousin,  "  that  we  do  such  and  such  an  act,  it  raises 
in  our  mind  a  judgment  which  declares  its  character,  and  it  is 
on  the  back  of  this  judgment  that  our  sensibility  is  moved. 
The  sentiment  is  not  this  primitive  and  immediate  judgment, 
but  is  its  powerful  echo.  So  far  from  being  the  foundation  of 
the  idea  of  the  good,  it  supposes  it."  On  the  other  hand,  we 
acknowledge  that  the  existence  of  the  feeling  has  a  most  pow- 
erful reflex  influence  in  quickening  the  faculty.  It  breathes 
life  into,  and  lends  wings  to  what  would  otherwise  be  so  inert 
and  inanimate.  But  we  must  quit  these  general  grounds. 
The  connection  between  the  emotions  and  their  relative  con- 
ceptions has  not  received  that  attention  which  it  deserves  from 
mental  analysts.  It  is  a  tropic  lying  open  to  the  first  voyager 
who  may  have  sufficient  courage  and  skill  to  explore,  without 
making  shipwreck  of  himself,  the  capes  and  bays  by  which 
this  land  and  water  indent  each  other. 

The  moral  faculty,  then,  can  never  be  employed  without 
emotion.  It  is  the  master  power  of  the  human  soul,  and  it  is 
befitting  that  it  should  never  move  without  a  retinue  of  at- 
tendants. These  feelings,  which  are  its  necessary  train  or 
accompaniment  in  all  its  exercises,  impart  to  them  all  their 
liveMness  and  fervor.  They  communicate  to  the  soul  that 
noble  elevation  which  it  feels  on  the  contemplation  of  benev- 
olence, of  devotedness  in  a  good  cause,  and  patriotism  and 
piety  under  all  their  forms.  These  attendants  of  this  monarch 
faculty,  while  they  gladden  and  manifest  its  presence  when 
the  will  is  obedient  to  its  master,  are  at  the  same  time  ready 
to  become  the  avenging  spirits  which  follow  up  the  commis- 
sion of  crime  with  more  fearful  lashings  than  the  serpent- 
covered  furies  were  ever  supposed  to  have  inflicted.  In  short, 
the  conscience  travels  like  a  court  of  justice,  with  a  certain 
air  of  dignity,  and  with  its  attendant  ministers  to  execute  its 
decisions.  All  this  is  as  it  should  be.  If  it  is  desirable,  as 
we  have  seen,  that  morality  should  be  presented  under  the 
character  of  a  law,  and  that  it  should  have  its  appropriate  facul- 


58  SPECULATIVE  MORALS. 

ty,  it  is  equally  needful  that  it  should  have  its  train  of  feelings, 
to  give  a  practical  interest  and  impetus  to  all  the  authori- 
tative decisions  which  this  judge  pronounces.  "  The  design  of 
the  sentiment,"  it  is  finely  remarked  by  Cousin,  "  is  to 
render  sensible  to  the  soul  tide  connection  of  virtue  and  hap- 
piness." 

It  is  always  to  be  borne  in  mind  however,  that  the  simple 
possession  of  conscience,  with  its  accompanying  emotions, 
does  not  render  any  individual  virtuous.  We  are  made  virtu- 
ous, not  by  the  possession  of  the  faculty  which  judges  of  vir- 
tuous actions,  or  of  the  emotions  which  echo  its  decisions, 
but  by  the  possession  of  the  virtuous  actions  themselves. 
This  may  seem  an  obvious  truth  when  it  is  stated  ;  but  it  has 
been  strangely  overlooked  by  many  persons,  who  conclude 
that  man  is  virtuous,  because  he  is  possessed  of  such  a  power 
and  of  its  responsive  feelings.  These  persons  do  not  reflect 
that  the  faculty  and  its  accompanying  sentiment  are  ready  to 
condemn  the  possessor  of  them,  when  he  is  without  the  affec- 
tions and  actions,  in  which  virture  truly  consists.  We  believe 
that  there  is  no  responsible  agent  so  fallen  and  corrupted 
that  he  does  not  possess  this  conscience  and  these  feelings ; — 
both,  it  may  be,  are  sadly  perverted  in  their  exercise — yet 
still  he  possesses  them  in  their  essential  form,  and  t  hat  by  the 
appointment  of  God,  in  order  that  they  may  so  far  punish 
him,  and  enable  him  to  measure  the  depth  of  his  degardation. 

The  view  now  offered  of  conscience,  from  the  way  in  which 
A  we  have  been  obliged  to  state  it,  may  seem  a  very  complex 
one.  In  reality,  it  is  very  simple.  It  is  to  be  regretted,  that 
in  giving  a  description  of  any  mental  state,  we  are  constrain- 
ed to  use  language  which  sounds  so  abstract  and  metaphysi- 
cal. The  conscience  is  the  mind  acting  according  to  a  moral 
law,  and  its  judgments  giving  rise  to  emotions.  We  do  not 
see  how  anything  could  be  simpler. 

The  writer  who  is  generally  acknowledged  to  have  written 
in  the  most  masterly  way  on  the  conscience,  seems  to  have 
viewed  in  it  the  light  now  presented.  He  was  not  required, 
for  the  object  which  he  had  in  view,  to  give  a  psychological 
analysis  of  it ;  but  it  is  evident,  that  he  views  it  under  the 
threefold  aspect  in  which  it  is  presented.  Sir  James  Mackin- 
tosh blames  him  for  not  steadily  presenting  conscience  under 
one  aspect — that  is,  for  not  representing  it  as  merely  a  "  class 
of  feelings."  That  which  Mackintosh  represents  as  a  defect, 
we  hold  to  be  an  excellence.  He  calls  it  again  and  again  a 
"  principle,"  and  a  "  law,"  the  "  principle  of  reflection  and 


'  SPECULATIVE  MORALS.  59 

conscience,"  and  the  "  law  of  his  creation,"  and  "  a  determi- 
nate rule,"  and  "  the  guide  of  life,  and  that  by  which  men 
are  a  law  unto  themselves  ;"  and  affirms,  that  "  every  man 
may  find  within  himself  the  rule  of  right  and  obligations  to 
follow  it."  That  he  regarded  the  conscience  as  "partaking 
both  of  the  nature  of  a  faculty  and  a  feeling,  is  evident  from 
his  callmg  it  a  u  faculty  in  the  heart,"  and  more  particularly 
from  the  following  passage  :  "  It  is  manifest,  that  great  part 
of  common  language,  and  of  common  behavior  over  the 
world,  is  formed  on  the  supposition  of  such  a  moral  faculty, 
whether  calfed  conscience,  moral  reason,  moral  sense,  or  Di- 
vine reason,  whether  considered  as  a  sentiment  of  the  under- 
standing, or  a  perception  of  the  heart,  or,  which  seems  the 
truth,  as  including  loth" 

We  have  a  complete  view  of  the  conscience  only  when  we 
look  at  it  under  this  three-fold  aspect,  in  this  its  triune  nature. 
In  each  of  these  characters  it  serves  a  seperate  purpose.  As 
a  law  fundamental  in  the  human  mind,  it  reveals  authorita- 
tively the  will  of  God.  As  a  faculty,  it  is  a  master  ever 
ready  to  issue  commands,  and  an  arbiterever  ready  to  decide. 
As  a  sentiment,  it  furnishes  pleasure,  stirs  up  desire,  and  leads 
to  activity.  Nor  is  it  unworthy  of  being  remarked,  that  it  is 
in  its  very  nature  connected,  both  with  the  understanding 
and  the  feelings,  partaking  of  the  strength  and  stability  of 
the  one,  and  the  life  and  facility  of  the  other.  It  is  the  "fac- 
ulty of  the  heart,"  and  the  "  sentiment  of  the  understanding." 
While  thus  linking  itself  with  all  parts  of  our  nature,  it  speaks 
as  one  having  authority  to  every  other  power  and  principle 
of  the  human  mind.  If  this  "  faculty  of  the  heart  "  were  al- 
lowed its  proper  power,  it  would,  in  the  name  of  the  supreme 
Governor,  preserve  for  him — that  is,  for  God — the  place  which 
he  ought  to  have  in  every  human  head  and  heart.  M^Cosh, 
p.  302. 

(29.)    LAWS  OF  THE  OPERATION  OF  CONSCIENCE,  ACCORDING 

TO  M'CosH. 

It  may  be  useful  to  observe  a  little  more  minutely  some  of 
the  laws  of  the  working  of  the  conscience. 

1st.  It  is  of  mental,  and  of  mental  acts  exclusively,  that  the 
conscience  judges.  It  has  no  judgment  whatever  to  pro- 
nounce on  a  mere  bodily  act.  We  look  out  at  the  window, 
and  we  see  two  individuals  in  different  places  chastising 


60  SPECULATIVE   MORALS. 

two  different  children.  The  conscience  pronounces  no  judg- 
ment in  the  one  case  or  the  other,  whatever  the  feelings  may 
do,  until  we  have  learned  the  motives  which  have  led  to  the 
performance  of  the  acts.  If  upon  inquiry  we  find  the  motive 
in  the  one  case  to  be  the  extreme  care  which  the  parent  takes 
of  the  moral  well-being  of  his  child,  and  the  motive  in  the 
other  case  to  be  blind  passion,  we  now  approve  of  the  one 
individual  and  disapprove  of  the  other;  butletit  be  observed, 
that  the  conscience  pronounces  its  judgment  not  on  the  out- 
ward actions,  but  on  the  internal  motives  and  feelings. 

%d.  It  is  of  acts  of  the  will,  and  of  acts  of  the  will  exclu- 
sively, that  the  conscience  judges.  In  saying  so  we  use  will 
in  a  large  sense,  as  large  as  that  department  which  has  been 
allotted  to  it,  we  believe,  by  God  in  the  human  mind.  We 
use  it  as  including  all  wishes,  desires,  intentions,  and  resolu- 
tions, all  that  is  properly  active  and  personal  in  man.  Now, 
we  think  that  the  principle  needs  only  to  be  announced  to 
command  conviction,  namely,  that  it  is  of  acts  of  the  will,  and 
acts  of  the  will  only,  that  the  conscience  judges,  declaring 
them  to  be  either  virtuous  or  vicious.  Ot  mere  sensations, 
of  mere  intellectual  acts,  of  mere  sensibility,  it  takes  no  di- 
rect cognizance ;  in  themselves  these  have  no  moral  qualities. 
No  doubt  these  sensations,  these  intellectual  ideas  or  emotions, 
may  be  fitted  to  lead  to  what  is  evil,  and  so  far  the  conscience 
will  be  led  to  pronounce  a  judgment  in  which  they  are  em- 
braced ;  but  the  actual  judgment  pronounced  is,  that  the  will 
is  doing  wrong  in  not  instantly  taking  steps  to  banish  them 
from  the  mind.  We  read  an  obscene  book,  and  impure  imagi- 
nations rise  up  in  our  minds  ;  but  here  let  it  be  remarked,  that 
what  the  conscience  condemns  is  not  so  much  the  mere  natu- 
ral feelings  as  the  voluntary  reading  of  a  work  which  is  fitted 
to  call  them  forth. 

3d.  The  conscience  approves  and  disapproves  not  of  isola- 
ted acts  merely*  but  also  of  the  mind  or  agent  manifested  in 


'SPECULATIVE  MOEALS.  61 

these  acts.  The  conscience  judges  according  to  truth,  and  re-  „ 
gards  all  mental  acts  as  the  mind  acting,  and  pronounces  its 
verdict,  not  so  much  on  the  mere  acts  as  on  the  mind  volunta- 
rily acting  in  them.  This  may  seem  an  unnecessarily  meta- 
physical method  of  expressing  an  obvious  truth,  but,  in  the 
sequel,  it  will*be  found  of  no  little  consequence  to  be  able 
precisely  to  determine  what  is  the  object  at  which  the  con- 
science looks,  and  on  which  it  pronounces  its  judgments. 

4th.  The  concience  pronounces  its  decision  on  the  state  of 
mind  of  the  responsible  agent  as  the  same  is  presented  to  it. 
It  is  not  the  business,  or  at  least  the  direct  office  of  the  con- 
science, to  determine  what  is  the  precise  mental  state — what 
is  the  wish,  desire,  intention,  or  resolution  of  any  responsible 
agent.  This  must  be  ascertained  by  the  usual  rules  and  laws 
of  evidence,  and  by  the  use  of  the  ordinary  intellectual  fac- 
ulties. It  is  upon  the  view  of  the  voluntary  acts  of  the  mind, 
as  they  are  represented  to  it,  that  the  conscience  utters  its  sen- 
tence. Thus,  in  the  case  which  we  have  put  of  the  two  pa- 
rents chastising  their  children,  the  one  act  presented  to  the 
conscience  is  that  of  a  parent  seeking,  by  proper  punishment 
to  correct  vice,  and  the  other  act,  is  that  of  an  individual 
cherishing  passion,  and  acting  upon  it.  It  is  upon  this  repre- 
sentation that  the  conscience  proceeds,  and  provided  the  rep- 
resentation be  correct,  the  decision  will  be  infallible.  But  let 
it  be  observed  that  the  representation  may  be  an  erroneous 
one.  Under  the  influence  of  hasty  feeling  or  prejudice,  we 
may  have  formed  very  incorrect  judgements  as  to  the  real  state 
of  mind  of  the  individuals  whose  conduct  we  have  been  ob- 
serving. While  the  conscience  has  pronounced  verdicts  which 
are  righteous  in  themselves,  these  verdicts  may  be  mistaken 
in  regard  to  the  given  individual  ;  for  the  one  parent  may  not 
have  been  under  the  influence  of  such  high-minded  virtue, 
nor  the  other  the  slave  of  passion,  as  has  been  supposed.  The 
conscience  is  in  the  position  of  a  barrister,  whose  opinion  is 


62  SPECULATIVE  MOEALS. 

asked  in  matters  of  legal  difficulty.  In  both  cases  the  judg- 
ment given  proceeds  on  the  supposed  accurcay  of  a  represen- 
tation submitted,  but  which  may  be  very  partial,  or  very  per- 
verted. 

It  followed — 5tL  That  there  may  le  much  uncertainty,  or 
confusion,  or  positive  error,  in  the  judgments  of  the  con- 
science, because  given  upon  false  representations.  All  the 
actions  of  man  are  of  a  concrete  character.  By  far  the  greater 
number  of  the  voluntary  acts  of  mankind  are  of  a  very  com- 
plex nature.  It  is  difficult  for  the  individual  himself,  and  still 
more  difficult  for  a  neighbor,  to  determine  what  are  the  precise 
motives  by  which  he  is  influenced  in  any  given  act.  The 
springs  of  human  action  are  often  as  difficult  to  be  discovered 
as  the  true  fountains  of  the  great  African  rivers,  which  rise  so 
far  in  the  unapproachable  interior  ;  and  there  is  room  for  end- 
less disputes  as  to  what  is  the  originating  and  original  motive, 
without  which  the  act  would  not  have  been  proposed  or  per- 
formed ;  and  when  we  have  fixed  on  any  one  source,  we  are 
not  sure  that  they  may  not  be  others  that  dispute  with  it  the 
pre-eminence.  M' 'Cosh, p.  336. 

(30.)    PALEY'S  CHAPTER  ON  HAPPINESS — WHAT  IT  DOES  NOT 
CONSIST  IN. 

1.  Then  Happiness  does  not  consist  in  the  pleasures  of 
sense,  in  whatever  profusion  or  variety  they  be  enjoyed. — 
By  the  pleasures  of  sense,  I  mean,  as  well  the  animal  gratifi- 
cations of  eating,  drinking,  and  that  by  which  tbe  species  is 
continued,  as  the  more  refined  pleasure  of  music,  painting, 
architecture,  gardening,  splendid  shows,  theatric  exhibitions  ; 
and  the  pleasures,  lastly,  of  active  sports,  as  of  hunting, 
shooting,  fishing,  &c.  For, 

1st,  These  pleasures  continue  but  a  little  while  at  a  time. 
This  is  true  of  them  all,  especially  of  the  grosser  sort  of  them. 
Laying  aside  the  preparation  and  the  expectation,  and  com- 


'    SPECULATIVE   MORALS.  €3 

pnting  strictly  the  actual  sensation,  we  shall  be  surprised  to 
find  how  inconsiderable  a  portion  of  our  time  they  occupy, 
how  few  hours  in  the  four  and  twenty  they  are  able  to  fill  up. 

2d,  These  pleasures,  by  repetition,  lose  their  relish.  It  is 
a  property  of  the  machine,  for  which  we  know  no  remedy, 
that  the  organs  by  which  we  perceive  pleasure  are  blunted 
and  benumbed  by  being  frequently  exercised  in  the  same 
way.  There  is  hardly  any  one  who  has  not  found  the  differ- 
ence between  a  gratification,  when  new,  and  when  familiar ; 
or  any  pleasure  which  does  not  become  indifferent  as  it  grows 
habitual. 

3d,  The  eagerness  for  high  and  intense  delights  takes  away 
the  relish  from  all  others  ;  and  as  such  delights  fall  rarely  in 
our  way,  the  greater  part  of  our  time  becomes,  from  this 
cause,  empty  and  uneasy. 

There  is  hardly  any  delusion  by  which  men  are  greater 
sufferers  in  their  happiness  than  by  their  expecting  too  much 
from  what  is  called  pleasure ;  that  is,  from  those  intense  de- 
lights which  vulgarily  engross  the  name  of  pleasure.  The 
very  expectation  spoils  them.  When  they  do  come,  we  are 
often  engaged  in  taking  pains  to  persuade  ourselves  how  much 
we  are  pleased,  rather  than  enjoying  any  pleasure  which 
springs  naturally  out  of  the  object.  And  whenever  we  de- 
pend upon  being  vastly  delighted,  we  always  go  home  secretly 
grieved  at  missing  our  aim.  Likewise,  as  has  been  observed 
just  now,  when  this  humor  of  being  prodigiously  delighted 
has  once  taken  hold  of  the  imagination, .  it  hinders  us  from 
providing  for,  or  acquiescing  in,  those  gentle  soothing  engage- 
ments, the  due  variety  and  succession  of  which  are  the  only 
things  that  supply  a  vein  or  continued  stream  of  happiness. 

What  I  have  been  able  to  observe  of  that  part  of  mankind, 
whose  professed  pursuit  is  pleasure,  and  who  are  withheld  in 
the  pursuit  by  no  restraints  of  fortune,  or  scruples  of  conscience 
corresponds  sufficiently  with  this  account.  I  have  commonly 


64:  SPECULATIVE  MORALS. 

remarked  in  such  men  a  restless  and  inextinguishable  passion 
for  variety  ;  a  great  part  of  their  time  to  be  vacant,  and  so 
much  of  it  irksome ;  and  that,  with  whatever  eagerness  and 
expectation  they  set  out,  they  become,  by  degrees,  fastidious 
in  their  choice  of  pleasures,  languid  in  the  enjoyment,  yet 
miserable  under  the  want  of  it. 

The  tr.uth  seems  to  be,  that  there  is  a  limit  at  which  these 
pleasures  soon  arrive,  and  from  which  they  ever  afterwards 
decline.  They  are  by  necessity  of  short  duration,  as  the 
organs  cannot  hold  on  their'emotions  beyond  a  certain  length 
of  time  ;  and  if  you  endeavour  to  compensate  for  this  imper- 
fection in  their  nature  by  the  frequency  with  which  you  repeat 
them,  you  suffer  more  than  ypu  gain,  by  the  fatigue  of  the 
faculties,  and  the  diminution  of  sensibility. 

"We  have  said  nothing  in  this  account,  of  the  loss  of  oppor- 
tunities or  the  decay  of  faculties,  which,  whenever  they  hap- 
pen, leave  the  voluptuary  destitute  and  desperate  ;  teased  by 
desires  that  can  never  be  gratified,  and  the  memory  of  pleas- 
ures which  must  return  no  more. 

It  will  also  be  allowed  by  those  who  have  experienced  it, 
and  perhaps  by  those  alone,  that  pleasure,  which  is  purchased 
by  the  encumbrance  of  our  fortune,  is  purchased  too  dear ; 
the  pleasure  never  compensating  for  the  perpetual  irritation 
of  embarrassed  circumstances. 

These  pleasures,  after  all,  have  their  value  ;  and  as  the 
young  are  always  too  eager  in  their  pursuit  of  them,  the  old 
are  sometimes  too  remiss,  that  is,  too  studious  in  their  ease, 
to  be  at  the  pains  for  them  which  they  really  deserve. 

2.  Neither  does  happiness  consist  in  an  exemption  from 
pain,  labor,  care,  business,  suspense,  molestation,  and  "  those 
evils  which  are  without;"  such  a  state  being  usually  attended, 
not  with  ease,  but  with  depression  of  spirits,  a  tastelessness 
in  all  our  ideas,  imaginary  anxieties,  and  the  whole  train  of 
hypochondriacal  affections. 


SPECULATIVE  MORALS.  65 

For  which  reason,  the  expectations  of  those  who  retire  from 
their  shops  and  counting-houses,  to  enjoy  the  remainder  of 
their  days  in  leisure  and  tranquility,  are  seldom  answered  by 
the  effect ;  much  less  of  such  as,  in  a  fit  of  chagrin,  shut 
themselves  up  in  cloisters  and  hermitages,  or  quit  the  world, 
and  their  stations  in  it,  for  solitude  and  repose. 

Where  there  exists  a  known  external  cause-of  uneasiness 
the  cause  may  be  removed,  and  the  uneasiness  will  cease. — 
Bat  those  imaginary  distresses  which  men  feel  for  want 
of  real  ones,  (and  which- are  equally  tormenting,  and  so 
far  equally  painful,)  as  they  depend  upon  no  single  or  as- 
signable subject  of  uneasiness,  admit  oftentimes  of  no  appli- 
cation of  relief. 

Hence  a  moderate  pain,  upon  which  the  attention  may  fas- 
ten and  spend  itself,  is  to  many  a  refreshment :  as  a  fit  of  the 
gout  will  sometimes  cure  the  spleen.  And  the  same  of  any  less 
violent  agatition  of  the  mind,  as  a  literary  controversy,  a  law- 
suit, a  contested  election,  and,  above  all,  gaming ;  the  passion 
for  which,  in  men  of  fortune  and  liberal  minds,  is  only  to  be 
accounted  for  on  this  principle. 

3.  Neither  does  happiness  consist  in  greatness,  rank,  or 
elevated  station. 

Were  it  true  that  all  superiority  offorded  pleasure,  it  would 
follow,  that  by  how  much  we  were  the  greater,  that  is,  the 
more  persons  we  were  superior  to,  in  the  same  proportion,  so 
far  as  depended  upon  this  cause,  we  should  be  the  happier  ; 
but  so  it  is,  that  no  superiority  yields  any  satisfaction,  save 
that  which  we  possess  or  obtain  over  those  with  whom  we 
immediately  compare  ourselves.  The  shepherd  perceives  no 
pleasure  in  his  superiority  over  his  dog ;  the  farmer,  in  his 
superiority  over  the  shepherd ;  thevlord,  in  his  superiority 
over  the  farmer;  nor  the  king,  lastly,  in  his  superiority  over 
the  lord.  Superiority,  where  there  is  no  competition,  is  sel- 
dom contemplated  ;  what  most  men  are  quite  unconscious  of- 


66  SPECULATIVE  MORALS. 

But  if  the  same  shephard  can  run,  fight  or  wrestle,  better 
than  the  peasants  of  his  village ;  if  the  farmer  can  show  bet- 
ter cattle,  if  he  keep  a  better,  horse,  or  be  supposed  to  have  a 
longer  purse,  than  any  farmer  in  the  hundred ;  if  the  lord 
have  more  interest  in  an  election,  greater  favor  at  court,  a 
better  house,  or  larger  estate  than  any  nobleman  in  the 
conn  try  ;  if  the  king  possess  a  more  extensive  territory,  a  more 
powerful  fleet  or  army,  a  more  splendid  establishment,  more 
loyal  subjects,  or  more  weight  and  authority  in  adjusting 
the  affairs  of  nations,  than  any  prince  in  Europe ; — in  all 
these  cases,  the  parties  feel  an  actual  satisfaction  in  their 
superiority. 

Now  the  conclusion  that  follows  from  hence  is  this ;  that 
the  pleasures  of  ambition,  which  are  supposed  to  be  pecular 
to  high  stations,  are  in  reality  common  to  all  conditions.  The 
farrier,  who  shoes  a  horse  better,  and  who  is  in  greater  request 
for  his  skill  than  any  man  within  ten  miles  of  him,  possesses, 
for  all  that  I  can  see,  the  delight  of  distinction  and  of  excell- 
ing, as  truly  and  substantially  as  the  statesman,  the  soldier, 
and  the  scholar,  who  have  filled  Europe  with  the  reputation 
of  their  wisdom,  their  valor,  or  their 'knowledge. 

No  superiority  appears  to  be  of  any  account,  but  superiori- 
ty over  a  rival.  This,  it  is  manifest,  may  exist  wherever 
rivalships  do  ;  and  rivalships  fall  out  among  men  of  all  ranks 
and  degrees.  The  object  of  emulation,  the  dignity  or  mag- 
nitude of  this  object,  makes  no  difference  ;  as  it  is  not  what 
either  possesses  that  constitutes  the  pleasures,  but  what  one 
possesses  more  than  the  other. 

Philosophy  smiles  at  the  contempt  with  which  the  rich  and 
great  speak  of  the  petty  strifes  and  competitions  of  the  poor  ; 
not  reflecting  that  these  strifes  and  competitions  are  just  as 
reasonable  as  their  own,  and  the  pleasure  which  success  af- 
fords, the  same. 

Our  position  is,  that  happiness  does  not  consist  in  greatness. 


*    SPECULATIVE  MOEAL8.  67 

And  this  position  we  make  out  by  showing,  that  even  what 
are  supposed  to  be  the  peculiar  advantages  of  greatness,  the 
pleasures  of  ambition  and  superiority,  are  in  reality  common 
to  all  conditions.  But  whether  the  pursuits  of  ambition  be 
ever  wise,  whether  they  contribute  more  to  the  happiness  or 
misery  of  the  pursuers,  is  a  different  question  ;  and  a  question 
concerning  which  we  may  be  allowed  to  entertain  great  doubt. 
The  pleasure  of  success  is  exquisite  ;  so  also  is  the  anxiety  of 
the  pursuit,  and  the  pain  of  disappointment ; — and  what  is 
the  worst  part  of  the  account,  the  pleasure  is  short  lived. — 
We  soon  cease  to  look  back  upon  those  whom  we  have  left 
behind  ;  new  contests  are  engaged  in,  new  prospects'  unfold 
themselves  ;  a  succession  of  struggles  are  kept  up,  while  there 
is  a  rival  left  inside  the  compass  of  our  views  and  profes- 
sions ;  and  when  there  is  none,  the  pleasure  with  the  pursuit 
is  at  an  end.  Paley^s  Moral  Philosophy,  p.  25. 

(31.)    PALEY'S  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  HABITS  ON  HAP- 
PINESS. 
i 

Happiness  depends  upon  the  prudent  constitution  of  the  hab- 
its. The  art  in  which  the  secret  of  human  happiness  in  a  great 
measure  consists,  is  to  set  the  habits  in  such  a  manner,  that 
every  change  may  be  a  change  for  the  better.  The  habits 
themselves  are  much  the  same  ;  for  whatever  is  made  habitual 
becomes  smooth,  and  easy,  and  nearly  indifferent.  The  re- 
turn to  an  old  habit  is  likewise  easy,  what  ever  the  habit  be. 
Therefore  the  advantage  is  with  those  habits  which  allow  of 
an  indulgence  in  the  deviation  from  them.  The  luxurious 
receive  nogreater  pleasure  from  their  dainties  than  the  peasant 
does  from  his  bread  and  cheese  ;  but  the  peasant,  whenever 
he  goes  abroad,  finds  a  feast ;  whereas  the  epicure  must  be 
well  entertained  to  escape  disgust.  Those  who  spend  every 
day  at  cards,  and  those  who  go  every  day  to  plough,  pass 
their  time  much  alike;  intent  upon  what  they  are  about, 


68  SPECULATIVE  MORALS. 

wanting  nothing,  regreting  nothing,  they  are  both  for  the 
time  in  a  state  of  ease;  but  then,  whatever  suspends  the  oc- 
cupation of  the  card  player  distresses  him  ;  whereas  to  the 
laborer  every  interruption  is  a  refreshment ;  and  this  appears 
in  the  different  effects  that  Sunday  produces  upon  the  two, 
which  proves  a  day  of  recreation  to  the  one,  but  a  lamentable 
burden  to  the  other.  The  man  who  has  learned  to  live  alone 
feels  his  spirits  enlivened  whenever  he  enters  into  company, 
and  takes  his  leave  without  regret :  another,  who  has  long 
been  accustomed  to  a  crowd,  or  continual  succession  of  com- 
pany experiences  in  company  no  elevation  of  spirits, 
nor  any  greater  satisfaction  than  what  the  man  of  a 
retired  life  finds  in  his  chimney  corner.  So  far  their 
conditions  are  equal;  but  let  a  change  of  place,  for- 
tune or  situation  separate  the  companion  from  his  circle, 
his  visitors,  his  club,  common  room,  or  coffee-house,  and  the 
difference  and  ^advantage  in  the  choice  and  constitution  of  the 
two  habits  will  show  itself.  Solitude  comes  to  the  one  clothed 
with  melancholy;  to  the  other  it  brings  liberty 'and  quiet. — 
You  will  see  the  one  fretful  and  restless,  at  a  loss  how  to  dis- 
pose of  his  time  till  the  hour  come  round  when  he  may  forget 
himself  in  bed ;  the  other,  easy  and  satisfied,  taking  up  his 
book  or  his  pipe  as  soon  as  he  finds  himself  alone  ;  ready  to 
admit  any  little  amusement  that  casts  up,  or  to  turn  his  hands 
and  attention  to  the  first  business  that  presents  itself;  or  con- 
tent, without  either,  to  sit  still,  and  let  his  train  of  thought 
glide  indolently  through  his  brain,  without  much  use,  perhaps, 
or  pleasure,  but  without  hankering  after  anything  better,  or 
without  irritation.  A  reader,  who  has  inured  himself  to  books 
of  science  and  argumentation,  if  a  novel,  a  well  written 
pamphlet,  and  article  of  news,  a  narrative  of  a  curious  voyage, 
or  a  journal  of  a  traveller  fall  in  his  way,  sits  down  to  the 
repast  with  relish  ;  enjoys  his  entertainment  while  it  lasts, 
and  can  return,  when  it  is  over,  to  his  graver  reading  without 


'   SPECULATIVE    MORALS.  69 

distaste.  Another,  with  whom  nothing  will  go  down  but 
works  of  humor  and  pleasantry,  or  whose  curiosity  must  be 
interested  by  perpetual  novelty,  will  consume  a  bookseller's 
window  in  half  a  forenoon  ;  during  which  time  he  is  rather  in 
search  of  diversion  than  diverted  ;  and  as  books  to  his  taste 
are  few  and  short,  and  rapidly  read  over,  the  stock  is  soon 
exhausted,  when  he  is  left  without  resource  from  this  princi- 
pal supply  of  harmless  amusement.  Paiey's  Moral  Phil- 
losophy,p.  31. 

(32.)    STEWART'S  EXPOSITION  OF  MORAL  OBLIGATION. 

According  to  some  systems,  moral  obligation  is  founded 
entirely  on  our  belief  that  virtue  is  enjoined  by  the  command 
of  God.  But  how,  it  may  be  asked,  does  this  belief  impose 
an  obligation  ?  Only  one  of  two  answers  can  be  given. 
Either  that  there  is  a  moral  fitness  that  we  should  conform 
our  will  to  that  of  the  Author  and  the  Governor  of  the  uni- 
verse ;  or  that  a  rational  self-love  should  induce  us,  from  mo- 
tives of  prudence,  to  study  every  means  of  rendering  our- 
selves acceptable  to  the  Almighty  Arbiter  of  happiness  and 
misery.  On  the  first  supposition  we  reason  in  a  circle.  "We 
resolve  our  sense  of  moral  obligation  into  our  sense  of  reli- 
gion, and  the  sense  of  religion  into  that  of  moral  obligation. 

The  other  system,  which  makes  virtue  a  mere  matter  of 
prudence,  although  not  so  obviously  unsatisfactory,  leads  to 
consequences  which  sufficiently  invalidate  every  argument  in 
its  favor.  Among  others  it  leads  us  to  conclude,  1.  That  the 
disbelief  of  a  future  state  absolves  from  all  moral  obligation 
excepting  in  so  far  as  we  find  virtue  to  be  conducive  to  our 
present  interest  :  2.  That  a  being  independently  and  com- 
pletely happy  cannot  have  any  moral  perceptions  or  any  moral 
attributes. 

But  farther,  the  notions  of  reward  and  punishment  presup- 
pose the  notions  of  right  and  wrong.  They  are  sanctions  of 


70  SPECULATIVE   MOEALS. 

virtue,  or  additional  motives  to  the  practice  of  it,  but  they 
suppose  the  existence  of  some  previous  obligation. 

In  the  last  place,  if  moral  obligation  be  constituted  by  a 
regard  to  our  situation  in  another  life,  how  shall  the  existence 
of  a  future  state  be  proved,  or  even  rendered  probable  by  the 
light  of  nature  ?  or  how  shall  we  discover  what  conduct  is 
acceptable  to  the  Deity  ?  The  truth  is,  that  the  strongest  pre- 
sumption for  such  a  state  is  deduced  from  our  natural  notions 
of  right  and  wrong  ;  of  merit  and  demerit  ;  and  from  a  com- 
parison between  these  and  the  general  course  of  human 
affairs. 

It  ds  absurd,  therefore,  to  ask  why  we  are  bound  to  prac- 
tice virtue.  The  very  notion  of  virtue  implies  the  notion  of 
obligation.  Every  being  who  is  conscious  of  the  distinction 
between  right  and  wrong  carries  about  with  him  a  law  which 
he  is  bound  to  observe,  notwithstanding  he  may  be  in  total 
ignorance  of  a  future  state.  "  What  renders  obnoxious  to 
punishment,"  (as  Dr.  Butler  has  well  remarked,)  "  is  not  the 
foreknowledge  of  it,  but  merely  the  violating  a  known  obli- 
gation." Or  (as  Plato  has  expressed  the  same  idea,)  TO  pev 


From  what  has  been  stated,  it  follows  that  the  moral  faculty, 
considered  as  an  active  power  of  the  mind,  differs  essentially 
from  all  the  others  hitherto  enumerated.  The  least  violation 
of  its  authority  fills  us  with  remorse.  On  the  contrary,  the 
greater  the  sacrifices  we  make  in  obedience  to  its  suggestions, 
the  greater  are  our  satisfaction  and  triumph. 

The  supreme  authority  of  conscience,  although  beautifully 
described  by  many  of  the  ancient  moralists,  w-as  not  suffi- 
ciently attended  to  by  modern  writers  as  a  fundamental  prin- 
ciple in  the  science  of  ethics  till  the  time  of  Dr.  Butler.  Too 
little  stress  'is  laid  on  it  by  Lord  Shaftesbury  ;  and  the  omis- 
sion is  the  chief  defect  in  his  system  of  morals.  Shaftesbury's 
opinion,  however,  although  he  does  not  state  it  explicitly  in 


*    SPECULATIVE  MOEALS.  71 

his  inquiry,  seems  to  have  been  precisely  the  same  at  bottom 
with  that  of  Butler. 

One  of  the  clearest  and  most  concise  statements  of  this 
doctrine  that  I  have  met  with  is  in  a  sermon  on  the  Nature 
and  Obligations  of  Yirtue,  by  Dr.  Adams  of  Oxford ;  the 
justness  of  whose  ideas  on  this  subject  make  it  the  more  sur- 
prising that  his  pupil  and  friend,  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  should 
have  erred  so  very  widely  from  the  truth.  "  Right"  (says 
he,)  "  implies  duty  in  its  idea.  To  perceive  an  action  to  be 
right  is  to  see  a  reason  for  doing  it  in  the  action  itself,  abstract- 
ed from  all  other  considerations  whatever ;  and  this  percep- 
tion, this  acknowledged  rectitude  in  the  action,  is  the  very 
essence  of  obligation,  that  which  commands  the  approbation 
and  choice,  and  binds  the  conscience  of  every  rational  human 
being." — "Nothing  can  bring  us  under  an  obligation  to 
do  what  appears  to  our  moral  judgment  wrong.  It  may 
be  supposed  our  interest  to  do  this,  but  it  cannot  be  supposed 
our  duty.  For,  I  ask,  if  some  power,  which  we  are  unable 
to  resist,  should  assume  the  command  over  us,  and  give  us 
laws  which  are  unrighteous  and  unjust,  should  we  be  under 
an  obligation  to  obey  him  ?  Should  we  not  rather  be  obliged 
to  shake  off  the  yoke,  and  to  resist  such  usurpation,  if  it  were 
in  our  power  ?  However,  then,  we  might  be  swayed  by  hope 
or  fear,  it  is  plain  that  we  are  under  an  obligation  to  right, 
which  is  antecedent,  and  in  order  and  nature  superior  to  all 
other.  Power  may  compel,  interest  may  bribe,  pleasure  may 
persuade,  but  reason  only  can  oblige.  This  is  the  only  au- 
thority which  rational  beings  can  own,  and  to  which  they 
owe  obedience." 

Dr.  Clark  has  expressed  himself  nearly  to  the  same  pur- 
pose. "The  judgment  and  conscience  of  a  man's  own  mind 
concerning  the  reasonableness  and  fitness  of  the  thing  is  the 
truest  and  formalest  obligation  ;  for  whoever  acts  contrary  to 
this  sense  and  conscience  of  his  own  mind  is  necessarily  self- 


72  SPECULATIVE   MORALS. 

condemned  ;  and  the  greatest  and  strongest  of  all  obligations 
is  that  which  a  man  cannot  break  through  without  condemn- 
ing himself.  So  far,  therefore,  as  men  are  conscious  of  what 
is  right  and  wrong,  so  far  they  are  under  an  obligation  to  act 
accordingly." 

The  fact,  however,  is,  that  as  this  view  of  human  nature  is 
the  most  simple,  so  it  is  the  most  ancient  which  occurs  in  the 
history  of  moral  science.  It  was  the  doctrine  of  the  Pytha- 
gorean school,  as  appears  from  a  fragment  of  Theages,  a  Py- 
thagorean writer,  published  in  Gale's  Opuscula  Mythologica. 
It  is  also  explained  by  Plato  in  some  of  his  dialogues,  in  which 
he  compares  the  soul  to  a  commonwealth,  and  reason  to  the 
council  of  state,  which  governs  and  directs  the  whole. 

Cicero  has  expressed  the  same  system  very  clearly  and 
concisely.  "  Duplex  enim  est  vis  animorum  atque  naturae. 
Una  pars  in  appetitu  posita  est,  quae  hominem  hue  et  illuc 
rapit,  quae  est  6^  Greece,  altera  in  ratione,  quae  docet  et  ex- 
planat,  quid  faciendum  fugiendumve  sit.  Ita  fit  ut  ratio 
praesit,  appetitus  obtemporet."  In  the  following  passage  this 
doctrine  is  enforced  in  a  manner  peculiarly  sublime  and  ex- 
pressive. 

"  Est  quidem  vera  Lex,  recta  ratio,  naturae  congruens,  dif- 
fusa  in  ornnes,  constans,  sempiterna,  quae  vocet  ad  officium 
jubendo,  vetando  a  fraude  deterreat.  Nee  erit  alia  Lex  Romae, 
alia  Athenis,  alia  nunc,  alia  posthac  ;  sed  et  omnes  gentes,  et 
omni  tempore  una  lex  et  sempiterna  et  immortalis  continebit ; 
unusque  erit  communis  quasi  magister  et  irnperator  omnium 
Deus.  Ille  hujus  legis  inventor,  disceptator,  lator.  Cui  qui 
non  parebit,  ipse  se  fugiet,  ac  naturam  hominis  aspernabitur; 
hoc  ipso  luet  maximas  poenas,  etiarnsi  caetera  supplicia,  quae 
putantur,  effngerit." 

It  is  very  justly  observed  by  Mr.  Smith,  (and  I  consider  the 
remark  as  of  the  highest  importance,)  that  "if  the  distinction 
pointed  out  in  the  foregoing  quotations  between  the  moral 


*     SPECULATIVE   MOEALS.  37 

faculty  and  our  other  active  powers  be  acknowledged,  ijk  is  of 
the  less  consequence  what  particular  theory  we  adopt  con- 
cerning the  origin  of  our  moral  ideas."  And  accordingly, 
though  he  resolves  moral  approbation  ultimately  into  a,  feeling 
of  the  mind,  he  nevertheless  represents  the  supremacy  of  con- 
science as  a  principle  which  is  equally  essential  to  all  the 
different  systems  that  have  been  proposed  on  the  subject. 
"  Upon  whatever  we  suppose  our  moral  faculties  to  be  found- 
ed," (I  quote  his  own  words,)  whether  upon  a  certain  modifi- 
cation of  reason,  upon  an  original  instinct  called  a  moral  sense, 
or  upon  some  other  principle  of  our  nature,  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  they  are  given  us  for  the  direction  of  our  con- 
duct in  this  life.  They  carry  along  with  them  the  most  evi- 
dent badges  of  their  authority,  which  denote  that  they  were 
set  up  within  us  to  be  the  supreme  arbiters  of  all  our  actions  ; 
to  superintend  all  our  senses,  passions,  and  appetites ;  and  to 
judge  how  far  each  of  them  was  to  be  either  indulged  or  re- 
strained. Our  moral  faculties  are  by  no  means,  as  some  have 
pretended,  upon  a  level  in  this  respect  with  the  other  faculties 
and  appetites  of  our  nature,  endowed  with  no  more  right  to 
restrain  these  last,  than  these  last  are  to  restrain  them.  ISTo 
other  faculty  or  principle  of  action  judges  of  any  other.  Love 
does  not  judge  of  resentment,  nor  resentment  of  love.  Those 
two  passions  may  be  opposite  to  one  another,  but  cannot,  with 
any  propriety,  be  said  to  approve  or  disapprove  of  one  an- 
other. But  it  is  the  peculiar  office  of  those  faculties  now 
under  consideration  to  judge,  to  bestow  censure  or  applause 
upon  all  the  other  principles  of  our  nature." 

"Since  these,  therefore,"  (continues  Mr.  Smith,)  uwere  plain- 
ly intended  to  be  the  governing  principles  of  human  nature, 
the  rules  which  they  prescribe  are  to  be  regarded  as  the  com- 
mands and  laws  of  the  Deity  promulgated  by  those  vicege- 
rents which  he  has  thus  set  up  within  us.  By  acting  accord- 
ing to  their  dictates  we  may  be  said,  in  some  sense,  to  co-op- 

10 


74:  SPECULATIVE  MORALS. 

erate  with  the  Deity,  and  to  advance,  as  far  as  in  our  power, 
the  plan  of  Providence.  By  acting  otherwise,  on  the  con- 
trary, we  seem  to  obstruct  in  some  measure,  the  scheme  which 
the  Author  ol  Nature  has  established  for  the  happiness  and 
perfection  of  the  world,  and  to  declare  ourselves  in  some 
measure  the  enemies  of  God.  Hence  we  are  naturally  en- 
couraged to  hope  for  His  extraordinary  favor  and  reward  in 
the  one  case,  and  to  dread  his  vengeance  and  punishment  in 
the  other."  Stewards  Active  <&  Moral  Powers,  vol.  1  p.  293. 

(33.)     CHAPTER  ON  MERIT  AND  DEMERIT — FROM  COUSIN. 

We  arrive,  then,  at  the  last  element  of  the  moral  phenome- 
non, the  judgment  of  merit  and  demerit. 

At  the  same  time  that  we  judge  that  a  man  has  done  a 
good  or  bad  action,  we  bear'  this  other  judgment  quite  as 
necessary  as  the  former,  to  wit,  that  if  this  man  has  acted 
well  he  has  merited  a  reward,  and  if  he  has  acted  ill,  he  has 
merited  a  punishment.  It  is  exactly  the  same  with  this  judg- 
ment as  with  that  of  the  good.  It  may  be  outwardly  express- 
ed in  a  more  or  less  lively  manner,  according  as  it  is  mingled 
with  more  or  less  energetic  feelings.  Sometimes  it  will  be 
only  a  benevolent  disposition  towards  the  virtuous  agent, 
and  an  unfavourable  disposition  towards  the  culpable  agent ; 
sometimes  it  will  be  enthusiasm  or  indignation.  In  some 
cases  one  will  make  himself  the  executor  of  the  judgment 
that  he  bears,  he  will  crown  the  hero  and  load  the  criminal 
with  chains.  But  when  all  your  feelings  are  calmed,  when 
enthusiasm  has  cooled  as  well  as  indignation,  when  time  and 
separation  have  rendered  an  action  almost  indifferent  to  you, 
you  none  the  less  persist  in  judging  that  the  author  of  this 
action  merits  a  reward  or  a  punishment,  according  to  the 
quality  of  the  action.  You  decide  that  you  were  right  in. the 
sentiments  that  you  felt,  and,  although  they  are  extinguished, 
you  declare  them  legitimate. 


SPECULATIVE  MORALS.  75 

The  judgment  of  merit  and  demerit  is  essentially  tied  to 
the  judgment  of  good  and  evil.  In  fact,  he  who  does  an 
action  without  knowing  whether  it  is  good  or  bad,  has  neither 
merit  nor  demerit  in  doing  it.  It  is  with  him  the  same  as 
with  those  physical  agents  that  accomplish  the  most  benefi- 
cent or  the  most  destructive  works,  to  which  we  never  think 
of  attributing  knowledge  and  will,  consequently  accountabili- 
ty. Why  are  there  no  penalties  attached  to  involuntary 
crimes  ?  Because  for  that  very  reason  they  are  not  regarded 
as  crimes.  Hence  it  comes  that  the  question  of  premedita- 
tion is  so  grave  in  all  criminal  processes.  "Why  is  the  child, 
up  to  a  certain  age,  subject  to  none  but  light  punishments  ? 
Because  where  the  idea  of  the  good  and  liberty  are  wanting, 
merit  and  demerit  are  also  wanting,  which  alone  authorize 
reward  and  punishment.  The  author  of  an  injurious  but, 
involuntary  action  is  condemned  to  an  indemnity  correspond- 
ing to  the  damage  done  ;  he  is  not  condemned  to  a  punish- 
ment properly  so  called. 

Such  are  the  conditions  of  merit  and  demerit.  "When  these 
conditions  are  fulfilled,  merit  and  demerit  manifest  them- 
selves, and  involve  reward  and  punishment. 

Merit  is  the  natural  right  we  have  to  be  rewarded  ;  demerit 
the  natural  ri^ht  that  others  have  to  punish  us,  and,  if,  we 
may  thus  speak,  the  right  that  we  have  to  be  punished.  This 
expression  may  seem  paradoxical,  nevertheless  it  is  true.  A 
culpable  man,  who,  opening  his  eyes  to  the  light  of  the  good, 
should  comprehend  the  necessity  of  expiation,  not  only  by 
internal  repentance,  without  which  all  the  rest  is  in  vain,  but 
also  by  a  real  and  effective  suffering,  such  a  culpable  man 
would  have  the  right  to  claim  the  punishment  that  alone  can 
reconcile  him  with  order.  And  such  reclamations  are  not  so 
rare.  Do  we  not  every  day  see  criminals  denouncing  them- 
selves and  offering  themselves  up  to  avenge  the  public  ? — • 
Others  prefer  to  satisfy  justice,  and  do  not  have  recourse  to 


76  SPECULATIVE   MORALS. 

the  pardon  that  law  places  in  the  hands  of  the  monarch  in 
order  to  represent  in  the  state  charity  and  mercy,  as  tribunals 
represent  in  it  justice.  This  is  a  manifest  proof  of  the 
natural  and  profound  roots  of  the  idea  of  punishment  and 
reward. 

Merit  and  demerit  imperatively  claim,  like  a  lawful  debt, 
punishment  and  reward  ;  but  reward  must  not  be  confounded 
with  merit,  nor  punisment  with  demerit;  this  would  be 
confounding  cause  and  effect,  principle  and  consequence. — • 
Even  were  reward  and  punishment  not  to  take  place,  merit 
aud  demerit  would  subsist.  Punishment  and  reward  satisfy 
merit  and  demerit,  but  do  not  constitute  them.  Suppress  all 
reward  and  all  punishment,  and  you  do  not  thereby  suppress 
merit  and  demerit;  on  the  contrary,  suppress  merit  and 
demerit,  and  there  are  no  longer  true  punishments  and  true 
rewards.  Unmerited  good  and  honors  are  only  material  ad- 
vantages ;  reward  is  essentially  moral,  and  its  value  is  inde- 
pendent of  its  form.  One  of  those  crowns  of  oak  that  the 
early  Romans  decreed  to  heroism  is  worth  more  than  all  the 
riches  in  the  world,  when  it  is  the  sign  of  the  recognition  and 
the  admiration  of  a  people.  To  reward  is  to  give  in  return. 
He  who  is  rewarded  must  have  first  given  something  in  order 
to  deserve  to  be  rewarded.  Reward  accorded  to  merit  is  a 
debt ;  reward  without  merit  is  a  charity  or  a  theft.  It  is  the 
same  with  punishment.  It  is  the  relation  of  pain  to  a  fault, 
in  this  relation,  and  not  in  the  pain  alone,  is  the  truth  as  well 
as  the  shame  of  chastisement. 

'Tis  crime  and  not  the  scaffold  makes  the  shame. 

Cousin's  Essay  upon  the  True,  Good  and  Beautiful, p.  289. 
(34.)  STEWART  UPON  THE  NATURE  AND  ESSENCE  OF  YIRTUE. 

It  was  before  remarked,  that  the  different  theories  of  Vir- 
tue which  have  prevailed  in  modern  times  have  arisen  chiefly 
from  attempts  to  trace  all  the  branches  of  our  duty  to  one 


SPECULATIVE  MORALS.  77 

principle  of  action  ;  such  as  a  rational  self-love,  benevolence, 
justice,  or  a  disposition  to  obey  the  will  of  God. 

That  none  of  these  theories  is  agreeable  to  fact  may  be 
collected  from  the  reasonings  which  have  been  already  stated. 
The  harmony,  however,  which  exists  among  our  various  good 
dispositions,  and  their  general  coincidence  in  determining  us 
to  the  same  course  of  life,  bestows  on  all  of  them,  when  skil- 
fully proposed,  a  certain  degree  of  plausibility. 

The  systematical  spirit  from  which  they  have  taken  their 
rise,  although  a  fertile  source  of  error,  has  not  been  without 
its  use;  inasmuch  as  it  has  roused  the  attention  of  ingenious 
men  to  the  most  important  of  all  studies,  that  of  the  end  and 
destination  of  human  life.  The  facility,  at  the  same  time, 
with  which  so  great  a  variety  of  consequences  may  all  be 
traced  from  distinct  principles,  affords  a  demonstration  of 
that  unity  and  consistency  of  design,  which  is  still  more  con- 
spicuous in  the  moral  than  in  the  material  world. 

Of  the  General  Definition  of  Virtue. — Having  taken 
a  cursory  survey  of  the  chief  branches  of  our  Duty,  we 
are  prepared  to  enter  on  the  general  question  concern- 
ing the  Nature  and  Essence  of  Virtue.  In  fixing  on 
the  arrangement  of  this  part  of  my  subject,  it  appeared  to 
me  more  agreeable  to  the  established  rules  of  philosophising, 
to  consider,  first,  our  duties  in  detail ;  and  after  having  thus 
laid  a  solid  foundation  in  the  way  of  analysis,  to  attempt  to 
raise  to  the  general  idea  in  which  all  our  duties  concur,  than 
to  circumscribe  our  inquiries,  at  our  first  outset,  ^within  the 
limits  of  an  arbitrary  and  partial  definition.  "What  I  have 
now  to  offer,  therefore,  will  consist  of  little  more  than  some 
obvious  and  necessary  consequences  from  principles  which 
have  been  already  stated. 

The  various  duties  which  have  been  considered  all  agree 
with  each  other  in  one  common  quality,  that  of  being  obli- 


78  SPECULATIVE  MORALS. 

gatory  on  rational  and  voluntary  agents ;  and  they  are  all 
enjoined  by  the  same  authority, — the  antJwrity  of  conscience. 
These  duties,  therefore,  are  but  different  articles  of  one  law, 
which  is  properly  expressed  by  the  word  Virtue. 

An  observation  to  the  same  purpose  is  put  into  the  mouth 
of  Socrates  by  Plato.  "So  likewise  concerning  the  virtues  ; 
though  they  are  many  and  various,  there  is  one  common  idea 
belonging  to  them  all,  by  which  they  are  virtuous.''  Owrw  ^ 
xa»  ifsgi  <rwv  a£cTwv?  xav  si  tfoXXou  xai  tfavTo&XTr'aj  eufiv^  sv  yz  <n  si8o$ 
raurov  OMratfcu  £"X?<fi  51  o  sitfiv  agsrcu. 

As  all  the  virtues  are  enjoined  by  the  same  authority  (the 
authority  of  conscience.)  the  man  whose  ruling  principle  of 
action  is  a  sense  of  duty,  will  observe  all  the  different  virtues 
with  the  same  reverence  and  the  same  zeal.  He  who  lives  in 
the  habitual  neglect  of  any  one  of  them  shows  plainly,  that 
where  his  conduct  happens  to  coincide  with  what  the  rules 
of  morality  prescribe,  it  is  owing  merely  to  an  accidental 
agreement  between  his  duty  and  his  inclination,  and  that  he 
is  not  actuated  by  that  motive  which  can  alone  render  our 
conduct  meritorious.  It  is  justly  said,  therefore,  that  to  live 
in  the  habitual  practice  of  any  one  vice,  is  to  throw  off  our 
allegiance  to  conscience  and  to  our  Maker,  as  decidedly  as  if 
we  had  violated  all  the  rules  which  duty  prescribes  ;  and  it  is 
in  this  sense,  I  presume,  that  we  ought  to  interpret  that  pas- 
sage of  the  Sacred  Writings,  in  which  it  is  said,  "  Tie  who 
keepeth  the  whole  law,  and  offendeth  in  one  point,  is  guilty 
of  all. 

The  word  virtue,  however,  (as  I  shall  have  occasion  to  re- 
mark more  particularly  in  the  next  section)  is  applied  not 
only  to  express  a  particular  course  of  external  conduct,  but 
to  express  a  particular  species  or  discription  of  human  char- 
acter. When  so  applied,  it  seems  properly  to  denote  a  habit 
of  mind,  as  distinguished  from  occasional  acts  of  duty.  It 
was  formerly  said  that  the  characters  of  men  receive  their 


*    SPECULATIVE  MORALS.  79 

denominations  of  covetous,  voluptuous,  ambitions,  &c.  from 
the  particular  active  principle  which  prevailingly  influences  the 
conduct.  A  man,  accordingly,  whose  ruling  or  habitual  princi- 
ple of  action  is  a  sense  of  duty,  or  a  regard  to  what  is  right,  may 
be  properly  denominated  virtuous.  Agreeably  to  this  view 
of  the  subject,  the  ancient  Pythagoreans  defined  virtue  to  be 
'  Efi£  rou  deovros,  the  oldest  definition  of  virtue  of  which  we 
have  any  account,  and  one  of  the  most  unexceptionable  .which, 
is  yet  to  be  found  in  any  system  of  philosophy. 

This  account  of  virtue  coincides  very  nearly  with  what  I 
conceive  to  be  Dr.  Reid's,  from  some  passages  in  his  Essays 
on  the  Active  Powers  of  Man.  Virtue  he  seems  to  consider 
as  consisting  "  in  a  fixed  purpose  or  resolution  to  act  accord- 
ing to  our  sense  of  duty." 

"  Suppose  a  man"  (says  he)  "  to  have  exercised  his  intellec- 
tual and  moral  faculties  so  far  as  to  have  distinct  notions  of 
justice  and  injustice,  and  of  the  consequences  of  both,  and 
after  due  deliberation  to  have  formed  a  fixed  purpose  to  ad- 
here inflexibly  to  justice,  and  never  to  handle  the  wages  of 
iniquity : 

"  Is  not  this  the  man  whom  we  should  call  a  just  man  ? 
"We  consider  the  moral  virtues  as  inherent  in  the  mind  of  a 
good  man,  even  where  there  is  no  opportunity  of  exercising 
them.  And  what  is  it  in  the  mind  which  we  can  call  the  vir- 
tue of  justice  when  it  is  not  exercised?  It  can  be  nothing 
but  a  fixed  purpose  or  determination  to  act  according  to  the 
rules  of  justice  when  there  is  opportunity." 

"With  all  this  I  perfectly  agree.  It  is  the  filed  purpose  to 
do  what  is  right  ^  >which  evidently  constitutes  what  we  call  a 
virtuous  disposition.  But  it  appears  to  me  that  virtue,  con- 
sidered as  an  attribute  of  character,  is  more  properly  defined 
by  the  habit  which  the  fixed  purpose  gradually  forms,  than 
by  the  fixed  purpose  itself.  It  is  from  the  eternal  habit  alone 
that  other  men  can  judge  of  the  purpose ;  and  it  is  from  the 


80  SPECULATIVE   MOBALS. 

uniformity  and  spontaneity  of  his  habit  that  the  individual 
himself  must  judge  how  far  his  purposes  are  sincere  and 
steady. 

I  have  said  that  this  account  of  virtue  coincides  with  the 
definition  of  it  given  by  the  ancient  Pythagoreans ;  and  it 
also  coincides  with  the  opinion  of  Aristotle,  by  whom  the 
ethical  doctrine  of  the  Pythagoreans  was  rendered  much  more 
complete  and  satisfactory.  According  to  this  philosopher  the 
different  virtues  are  "practical  habits,  voluntary  in  their 
origin,  and  agreeable  to  right  reason."  This  last  philosopher 
seems  indeed  to  have  considered  the  subject  of  habits  in 
general  more  attentively  than  any  other  writer  of  antiquity  ; 
and  he  has  suggested  some  important  hints  with  respect  to 
them,  which  well  deserve  the  attention  of  those  who  may  turn 
their  thoughts  to  this  very  interesting  class  of  facts  in  the 
human  constitution. 

In  referring  to  these  doctrines  of  the  ancient  schools,  I  am 
far  from  proceeding  on  the  supposition,  that  questions  of 
science  are  to  be  decided  by  authority.  But  I  own  it  always 
appears  to  me  to  afford  a  strong  presumption  in  favor  of  any 
conclusion  concerning  the  principles  of  human  nature,  when 
we  find  it  sanctioned  by  the  judgment  of  those  who  have 
been  led  to  it  by  separate  and  independent  processes  of 
reasoning.  For  the  same  reason  I  think  it  of  consequence  to 
remark  the  coincidence  between  the  account  now  given  of 
Virtue  and  that  of  Mr.  Hobbes,  one  of  the  most  sceptical, 
but,  at  the  same  time,  one  of  the  most  acute  and  original  of 
our  English  metaphysicians.  "  Virtue"  (says  he)  "  is  the  habit 
of  doing  according  to  those  laws  of  Nature  that  tend  to  our  pres- 
ervation; and  vice  is  the  habit  of  doing  the  contrary."  The 
definition  indeed  is  faulty,  in  so  far  as  it  involves  the  author's 
selfish  theory  of  morals;  but  in  considering  the  word  virtue 
as  expressive  of  a  habit  of  action,  it  approaches  nearer  to  the 


O 
SPECULATIVE   MORALS.  81 

truth  tban  the  greater  part  of  the  definitions  of  virtne  to  be 
found  in  the  writings  of  the  moderns. 

These  observations  lead  to  an  explanation  of  what  has  at 
first  sight  the  appearance  of  paradox  in  the  ethical  doctrines 
of  Aristotle,  that  where  there  is  self-denial  there  is  no  virtue. 
That  the  merit  of  particular  actions  is  increased  by  the  self- 
denial  with  which  they  are  accompanied  cannot  be  disputed  ; 
but  it  is  only  when  we  are  learning  the  practice  of  our  duties 
that  this  self-denial  is  exercised,  (for  the  practice  of  morality, 
as  well  as  of  everything  else,  is  facilitated  by  repeated  acts  ;) 
and  therefore,  if  the  word  virtue  be.employed  to  express  that 
habit  of  mind  which  it  is  the  great  object  of  a  good  man  to 
confirm,  it  will  follow,  that,  in  proportion  as  he  approaches  to 
it,  his  efforts  of  self-denial  must  diminish,  and  that  all  occa- 
sion for  them  would  cease  if  his  end  were  completely  attained. 
The  definition  of  virtue  given  by  Aristotle,  as  consisting  in 
"  right  practical  habits  voluntary  in  "  their  origin"  is  well 
illustrated  by  what  Plutarch   has  told  us  of  the  means  by 
which  he  acquired  the  mastery  over  his  irascible  passions.    "I 
have  always  approved"  (says  he)   "  of  the  engagements  and 
vows  imposed  on  themselves  from  motives  of  religion,  by  cer- 
tain philosophers,  to  abstain  from  wine,  or  from  some  other 
favorite  indulgence,  for  the  space  of  a  year.     I  have  also  ap- 
proved of  the  determination  taken  by  others  not  to  deviate 
from  the  truth,  even  in  the  lightest  conversation,  during  a  par- 
ticular period.     Comparing  my  own  mind  with  theirs,  and 
conscious  that  I  yielded  to  none  of  them  in  reverence  for 
God,  I  tasked  myself,  in  the  first  instance,  not  to  give  way  to 
anger  upon  any  occasion  for  several  days.     I  afterwards  ex- 
tended this  resolution  to  a  month  or  longer ;  and  having  thus 
made  a  trial  of  what  i  could  do,  I  have  learned  at  length 
never  to  speak  but  with  gentleness,  and  so  carefully  to  watch 
over  my  temper  as  never  to  purchase  the  short  and  unprofita- 

11 


82  SPECULATIVE  MORALS. 

ble  gratification  of  venting  my  resentment  at  the  expense  of 
a  lasting  and  humiliating  remorse." 

I  must  not  dismiss  this  topic  without  recommending,  not 
merely  to  the  perusal,  bat  to  the  diligent  study  of  all  who 
have  a  taste  for  moral  inquiries,  Aristotle's  Nicomachean 
Ethics,  in  which  he  has  examined,  with  far  greater  accuracy 
than  any  other  author  of  antiquity,  the  nature  of  habits  con- 
sidered in  their  relation  to  our  moral  constitution.  The  whole 
treatise  is  indeed  of  great  value,  and,  with  the  exception  of  a 
few  passages,  almost  justifies  the  very  warm  and  unqualified 
eulogium  pronounced  upon  it  by  a  learned  divine  (Dr.  Ken- 
nel) before  the  University  of  Cambridge, — an  eulogium  in 
which  he  goes  so  very  far  as  to  assert  of  this  work,  "  that  it 
affords  not  only  the  most  perfect  specimen  of  scientific  mor- 
ality, but  exhibits  also  the  powers  of  the  most  compact  and 
best  constructed  system  which  the  human  intellect  ever  pro- 
duce^ upon  any  subject ;  enlivening  occasionally  great  se- 
verity of  method,  and  strict  precision  of  terms,  by  the  sub- 
limest  though  soberest  splendor  of  diction." 

For  the  use  of  English  readers  an  excellent  translation  of 
Aristotle's  Ethics  and  also  of  his  Politics  has  been  published 
by  Dr.  Gillies  ;  and  indeed  I  do  not  know  of  any  treatises, 
among  the  many  remains  of  antiquity,  which  could  have  been 
selected  as  a  more  important  accession  to  the  stock  of  our  na- 
tional literature. 

On  an  Ambiguity  in  the  words  Right  and  Wrong,  Virtue 
and  Vice. — The  epithets  Eight  and  Wrong,  Virtuous  and 
Vicious,  are  applied  sometimes  to  external  actions,  and  som- 
times  to  the  intentions  of  the  agent.  A  similar  ambiguity 
may  be  remarked  in  the  corresponding  words  in  other  lan- 
guages. 

This  ambiguity  is  owing  to  various  causes,  which  it  is  not 
necessary  at  present  to  trace.  Among  other  circumstances, 


SPECULATIVE    MORALS.  b& 

it  is  owing  to  the  association  of  ideas,  which,  as  it  leads  us 
to  connect  notions  of  elegance  or  of  meanness  with  many  ar- 
bitrary expressions  in  language,  so  it  often  leads  ns  to  con- 
nect notions  of  right  and  wrong  with  external  actions,  consid- 
ered abstractly  from  the  motives  which  produced  them.  It 
is  owing  (at  least  in  part)  to  this,  that  a  man  who  has  been 
involuntarily  the  author  of  any  calamity  to  another,  can  hardly 
by  any  reasoning  banish  his  feelings  of  remorse ;  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  however  wicked  our  purposes  may  have 
been,. if  by  any  accident  we  have  been  prevented  from  carry- 
ing them  into  execution,  we  are  apt  to  consider  ourselves  as 
far  less  culpable  than  if  we  had  perpetrated  the  crimes  that 
we  had  intended.  It  is  much  in  the  same  manner  that  we 
think  it  less  criminal  to  mislead  others  by  hints,  or  looks,  or 
actions,  than  by  a  verbal  lie  ;  and  in  general,  that  we  think 
our  guilt  diminished  if  we  can  only  contrive  to  accomplish 
our  ends  without  employing  those  external  signs,  or  those  ex- 
ternal means,  with  which  we  have  been  accustomed  to  asso- 
ciate the  notions  of  guilt  and  infamy.  Shakespeare  has  pain- 
ted with  philosophical  accuracy  this  natural  subterfuge  of  a 
vicious  mind,  in  which  the  sense  of  duty  still  retains  some 
authority,  in  one  of  the  exquisite  scenes  between  King  John 
and  Hubert : 

' '  Hadat  thou  but  shook  thy  head,  and  made  a  pause 
When  I  spake  dark  y  what  I  purposed  ; 
Or  turned  an  eye  of  doubt  upon  my  face ; 
Or  bade  me  tell  my  tale  in  express  words; 
Deep  shame  had  struck  me  dumb,  made  me  break  off, 
And  those  thy  fears  might  have  wrought  fears  iu  me. 
But  thou  didst  understand  me  by  my  signs, 
And  Didst  in  signs  again  parley  with  sin.n 

As  the  twofold  application  of  the  words  Right  and  Wrong 
to  the  intentions  of  the  mind,  and  to  external  actions,  has  a 
tendency,  in  the  common  business  of  life,  to  affect  our  opin- 
ions concerning  the  merits  of  individuals,  so  it  has  misled  the 


84  SPECULATIVE  MOEALS. 

theoretical  speculations  of  some  very  eminent  philosophers 
in  their  inquiries  concerning  the  principles  of  morals.  It  was 
to  obviate  the  confusion  of  ideas  arising  from  this  ambiguity 
of  language  that  the  distinction  between  absolute  and  relative 
rectitude  was  introduced  into  ethics  ;  and  as  the  distinction  is 
equally  just  and  important,  it  will  be  proper  to  explain  it  par- 
ticularly, and  to  point  out  its  application  to  one  or  two  of  the 
questions  which  have  been  perplexed  by  that  vagueness  of 
expression  which  it  is  our  object  at  present  to  correct. 

An  action  may  be  said  to  be  absolutely  right,  when  it  is  in 
every  respect  suitable  to  the  circumstances  in  which  the 
agent  is  placed  ;  or,  in  other  words,  when  it  is  such  as,  with 
perfectly  good  intentions,  under  the  guidance  of  an  enlight- 
ened and  well-formed  understanding,  he  would  have  per- 
formed. 

An  action  may  be  said  to  be  relatively  right,  when  the 
intentions  of  the  agent  are  sincerely  good,  whether  his  con- 
duct be  suitable  to  his  circumstances  or  not. 

According  to  these  definitions,  an  action  may  be  right  in 
one  sense  and  wrong  in  another  ;  an  ambiguity  in  language, 
which,  how  obvious  soever,  has  not  always  been  attended  to 
by  the  writers  on  morals. 

It  is  the  relative  rectitude  of  an  action  which  determines 
the  moral  desert  of  the  agent ;  but  it  is  its  absolute  rectitude 
which  determines  its  utility  to  his  wordly  interests,  and  to  the 
welfare  of  society.  And  it  is  only  so  far  as  absolute  and  rela- 
tive rectitude  coincide,  that  utility  can  be  affirmed  to  be  a 
quality  of  virtue. 

A  strong  sense  of  duty  will  indeed  induce  us  to  avail  our- 
selves of  all  the  talents  we  possess,  and  of  all  the  information 
within  our  reach,  to  act  agreeably  to  the  rules  of  absolute 
rectitude.  And  if  we  fail  in  doing  so,  our  negligence  is  crimi- 
nal. "  Crimes  committed  through  ignorance,"  (as  Aristotle 
has  very  judiciously  observed,)  "  are  only  excusable  when  the 


SPECULATIVE   MOKALS.  85 

ignorance  is  involuntary  ;  for  when  the  cause  of  it  lies  in  our- 
selves, it  is  then  justly  punishable.  The  ignorance  of  those 
laws  which  all  may  know  if  they  will,  does  not  excuse  the  , 
breach  of  them  ;  and  neglect  is  not  pardonable  where  atten- 
tion ought  to  be  bestowed.  But  perhaps  we  are  incapable  of 
attention.  This,  however,  is  our  own  fault  :  since  the  inca- 
pacity has  been  contracted  by  our  continual  carelessness  ;  as 
the  evils  of  injustice  and  intemperance  are  contracted  by  the 
daily  commission  of  iniquity,  and  the  daily  indulgence  in  vo- 
luptuousness. For  such  as  our  actions  are,  such  must  our 
habits  become." 

Notwithstanding,  however,  the  truth  and  the  importance  of 
this  doctrine,  the  general  principle  already  stated  remains  in- 
controvertible, that  in  every  particular  instance  our  duty  con- 
sists in  doing  what  appears  to  us  to  be  right  at  the  time  ;  and 
if,  while  we  follow  this  rule,  we  should  incur  any  blame,  our 
demerit  does  not  arise  from  acting  according  to  an  erroneous 
judgment,  but  from  our  previous  misemployment  of  the  means 
we  possessed  for  correcting  the  errors  to  which  our  judgment 
is  liable. 

From  these  principles  it  follows,  that  actions,  although  ma- 
terially right,  are  not  meritorious  with  respect  to  the 
agent,  unless  performed  from  a  sense  of  duty.  This  con- 
clusion, indeed,  has  been  disputed  by  Mr.  Hume,  upon 
grounds  which  I  cannot  stop  to  examine;  but  its  truth  is  ne- 
cessarily implied  in  the  foregoing  reasonings,  and  it  is  perfectly 
consonant  to  the  sentiments  of  the  soundest  moralists,  both 
ancient  and  modern.  Aristotle  inculcates  this  doctrine  in 
many  parts  of  his  Ethics.  In  one  passage  he  represents  it  as 
essential  to  virtuous  actions,  that  the  actions  are  done  ivsxa  <rx 
•  and  in  another  place  he  says,  stfn  y^  au<ryj  ^  su^a^/a 


To  the  same  purpose,  also,  Lord  Shaftesbury.     "  In  this  case 
alone  it  is  we  call  any  creature  worthy  or  virtuous,  when  it 


86  SPECULATIVE   MOBALS. 

can  attain  to  the  speculation  or  sense  of  what  is  morally  good 
or  ill,  admirable  or  blameable,  right  or  wrong.  For  though 
we  may  vulgarly  call  an  ill  horse  vicious,  yet  we  never  say  of 
a  good  one,  nor  of  any  mere  changeling  or  idiot,  though  never 
so  good-natured,  that  he  is  worthy  or  virtuous.  So  that  if  a 
creature  be  generous,  kind,  constant,  and  compassionate,  yet, 
if  he  cannot  reflect  on  what  he  himself  does  or  sees  others  do, 
so  as  to  take  notice  of  what  is  worthy  and  honest,  and  make 
that  notice  or  conception  of  worth  and  honesty  to  be  an  ob- 
ject of  his  affection,  he  has  not  the  character  of  being  virtu- 
ous, for  thus,  and  no  otherwise,  he  is  capable  of  having  a  sense 
of  right  or  wrong,"  And  elsewhere  he  observes,  "  that  if 
that  which  restrains  a  person  and  holds  him  to  a  virtuous-like 
behavior,  be  no  affection  towards  virtue  or  good  ness  itself,  but 
towards  private  good  merel}7,  he  is  not  in  reality  the  more 
virtuous."  Stewards  Active  and  Moral  Powers,  p.  443 

(35.)     CHAPTER  ON  THE  NATURE   OF   VIRTUE — FROM   BISHOP 

BUTLER. 

That  which  renders  beings  capable  of  moral  government, 
is  their  having  a  moral  nature,  and  moral  faculties  of  percep- 
tion and  of  action.  Brute  creatures  are  impressed  and  actu- 
ated by  various  instincts  and  propensions:  so  also  are  we. — 
But,  additional  to  this,  we  have  a  capacity  of  reflecting  upon, 
actions  and  characters,  and  making  them  an  object  to  our 
thought:  and  on  our  doing  this,  we  naturally  and  unavoid- 
ably approve  some  actions,  under  the  peculiar  view  of  their 
being  virtuous  and  of  good  desert ;  and  disapprove  others,  as 
vicious  and  of  ill  desert.  That  we  have  this  moral  approving 
and  disapproving  faculty,  is  certain  from  our  experiencing  it 
in  ourselves,  and  recognizing  it  in  each  other.  It  appears 
from  our  exercising  it  unavoidably,  in  the  approbation  and 
disapprobation  even  of  feigned  characters  :  from  the  words, 
right  and  wrong,  odious  and  amiable,  base  and  worthy,  with 


1   SPECULATIVE   MOEALS.  87 

many  others  of  like  signification  in  all  languages,  applied  to 
actions  and  characters  :  from  the  many  written  systems  of 
morals  which  suppose  it ;  since  it  cannot  be  imagined,  that  all 
these  authors,  throughout  all  these  treatises,  had  abosomtely 
no  meaning  at  all  to  their  words,  or  a  meaning  merely  chimeri- 
cal :  from  our  natural  sense  of  gratitude,  which  implies  a  dis- 
tinction between  merely  being  the  instrument  of  good,  and 
intending  it :  from  the  like  distinction,  every  one  makes,  be" 
tween  injury  and  mere  harm,  which,  Hobbes  says,  is  peculiar 
to  mankind ;  and  between  injury  and  just  punishment — a 
distinction  plainly  natural  prior  to  the  consideration  of  human 
laws.  It  is  manifest,  great  part  of  common  language,  and  of 
common  behaviour,  over  the  world,  is  formed  upon  supposi- 
tion of  such  a  moral  faculty ;  whether  called  conscience, 
moral  reason,  moral  sense,  or  divine  reason ;  whether  con- 
sidered as  a  sentiment  of  the  understanding,  or  as  a  percep- 
tion of  the  heart,  or,  which  seems  the  truth,  as  including 
both.  Nor  is  it  at  all  doubtful,  in  the  general,  what  course 
of  action  this  faculty,  or  practical  discerning  power  within  us 
approves,  and  what  it  disapproves.  For,  as  much  as  it  has 
been  disputed  wherein  virtue  consists,  or  whatever  ground  for 
doubt  there  may  be  about  particulars,  yet,  in  general,  there 
is  in  reality  an  universally  acknowledged  standard  of  it.  It 
is  that  which  all  ages  and  all  countries  have  made  profession 
of  in  public ;  it  is  that  which  every  man  you  meet  puts  on 
the  show  of;  it  is  that  which  the  primary  and  fundamental 
laws  of  all  civil  constitutions,  over  the  face  of  the  earth  make 
it  their  business  and  endeavour  to  enforce  the  practice  of 
upon  mankind  ;  namely,  justice,  veracity,  and  regard  to  com- 
mon good.  It  being  manifest  then,  in  general,  that  we  have 
such  a  faculty  or  discernment  as  this,  it  may  be  of  use  to 
remark  some  things,  more  distinctly,  concerning  it. 

1st.    It  ought  to  be  observed,  that  the  object  of  this  faculty 
is  actions,  comprehending  under  that  name,  active  or  practical 


88  SPECULATIVE   MORALS. 

principles ;  those  principles  from  which  men  would  act,  if 
occasions  and  circumstances  gave  them  power ;  and  which? 
when  fixed  and  habitual  in  any  person,  we  call  his  character. 
It  does  not  appear  that  brutes  have  the  least  reflex  sense  of 
actions  as  distinguished  from  events  ;  or  that  will  and  design, 
which  constitute  the  very  nature  of  actions  as  such,  are  at  all 
an  object  to  their  perception.  But  to  ours  they  are ;  and 
they  are  the  object,  and  the  only  one,  of  the  approving  and 
disapproving  faculty.  Acting,  conduct,  behaviour,  abstract 
ed  from  all  regard  to  what  is,  in  fact  and  event,  the  conse- 
quence of  it,  is  itself  the  natural  object  of  the  moral  discern- 
ment, as  speculative  truth  and  falsehood  is  of  speculative 
reason.  Intention  of  such  and  such  consequences,  indeed,  is 
always  included  ;  for  it  is  part  of  the  action  itself;  but  though 
the  intended  good  or  bad  consequences  do  not  follow,  we  have 
exactly  the  same  sense  of  the  action  as  if  they  did.  In  like 
manner,  we  think  well  or  ill  of  characters,  abstracted  from 
all  consideration  ot  the  good  or  evil,  which  persons  of  such 
characters  have  it  actually  in  their  power  to  do.  "We  never, 
in  the  moral  way,  applaud  or  blame  either  ourselves  or  others, 
for  what  we  enjoy  or  what  we  suffer,  or  for  having  impres- 
sions made  upon  us  which  we  consider  as  altogether  out  of 
my  power ;  but  only  for  what  we  do  or  would  have  done, 
had  it  been  in  our  power  ;  or  for  what  we  leave  undone  which 
we  might  have  done,  or  would  have  left  undone  though  we 
could  have  done  it. 

y2d.  Our  sense  or  discernment  of  actions,  as  morally  good 
or  evil,  implies  in  it  a  sense  or  discernment  of  them  as  of 
good  or  ill  desert.  It  may  be  difficult  to  explain  this  percep- 
tion, so  as  to  answer  all  the  questions  which  may  be  asked 
concerning  it ;  but  every  one  speaks  of  such  and  such  actions 
as  deserving  punishment ;  and  it  is  not,  I  suppose,  pretended, 
that  they  have  absolutely  no  meaning  at  all  to  the  expression. 
Now,  the  meaning  plainly  is  not,  that  we  conceive  it  for  the 


SPECULATIVE  MORALS.  89 

good  of  society  that  the  doer  of  such  actions  should  be  made 
to  suffer  :  for  if  unhappily  it  were  resolved,  that  a  man  who, 
by  some  innocent  action,  was  infected  with  the  plague,  should 
be  left  to  perish,  lest,  by  other  people  coming  near  him,  the  in- 
fection should  spread  ;  no  one  would  say  he  deserved  this  treat- 
ment. Innocence  and  ill  desert  are  inconsistent  ideas.  Ill  de- 
sert always  supposes  guilt ;  and  if  one  be  not  part  of  the 
other,  yet  they  are  evidently  and  naturally  connected  in  our 
mind.  The  sight  of  a  man  in  misery  raises  our  compassion 
towards  him ;  and,  if  this  misery  be  inflicted  on  him  by 
another,  our  iudgination  against  the  author  of  it.  But  when 
we  are  informed  that  the  sufferer  is  a  villain,  and  is  punished 
only  for  his  treachery  or  cruelty,  our  compassion  exceedingly 
lessens,  and,  in  many  instances,  our  indignation  wholly  sub- 
sides. Now,  what  produces  this  effect  is  the  conception  of 
that  in  the  sufferer  which  we  call  ill  desert.  Upon  consider- 
ing, then,  or  viewing  together,  our  notion  of  vice  and  that  of 
misery,  there  results  a  third,  that  of  ill  desert.  And  thus 
there  is  in  human  creatures  an  association  of  the  two  ideas, 
natural  and  moral  evil,  wickedness  and  punishment.  If  this 
association  were  merely  artificial  or  accidental,  it  were  noth- 
ing ;  but  being  most  unquestionably  natural,  it  greatly  con- 
cerns us  to  attend  to  it,  instead  of  endeavoring-  to  explain  it 
away. 

3d.  "Without  inquiring  how  far,  and  in  what  sense,  virtue 
is  resolvable  into  benevolence,  and  vice  into  the  want  of  it ; 
it  may  be  proper  to  observe,  that  benevolence,  and  the  want 
of  it,  singly  considered,  are  in  no  sort  the  whole  of  virtue  and 
vice.  For  if  this  were  the  case,  in  the  review  of  one's  own 
character,  or  that  of  others,  our  moral  understanding  and 
moral  sense  would  be  indifferent  to  everything,  but  the  de- 
grees in  which  benevolence  permitted,  and  the  degress 
in  which  it  was  wanting.  That  is,  we  should  neither 
approve  of  benevolence  to  some  persons  rather  than  to  others, 

12 


90  SPECULATIVE  MORALS. 

nor  disapprove  injustice  and  falsehood,  upon  any  other  ac- 
count, than  merely  as  an  overbalance  of  happiness  was  fore- 
seen likely  to  be  produced  by  the  first,  and  of  misery  by  the 
second.    But  now,  on  the   contrary,  suppose  two  men  com- 
petitors for  anything  whatever,  which  would  be  of  equal  ad- 
vantage to  each  of  them  ;  though  nothing,  indeed,  would  be 
more  impertinent  than  for  a  stranger  to  busy  himself  to  get 
one  of  them  preferred  to  the  other,  yet  such  endeavor  would 
be  virtue,  in  behalf  of  a  friend  or  benefactor,  abstracted  from 
all  consideration  of  distant  consequences ;  as  that  examples 
of  gratitude,  and  the  cultivation  of  friendship,  would  be  of 
general  good  to  the  world.    Again,  suppose  one  man  should 
by  fraud  or  violence,  take  from  another  the  fruit  of  his  labor, 
with  intent  to  give  it  to  a  third,  who,  he  thought,  would  have 
as  much  pleasure  from  it  as  would  balance  the  pleasure  which 
the  first  possessor  would  have  had  in  the  enjoyment,  and  his 
vexation  in  the  loss  of  it ;  suppose  also,  that  no  bad  conse- 
quences would  follow ;  yet  such  an  action  would  surely  be 
vicious.    Nay,  farther,   were  treachery,  violence,  and  injus- 
tice, no  otherwise  vicious  than  as  foreseen  likely  to  produce 
an  overbalance  of  misery  to  society ;  then,  if  in  any  case  a 
man  could  procure  to  himself  so  great  advantage  by  an  act  of 
injustice,  as  the  whole  foreseen  inconvenience  likely  to  be 
brought  upon  others  by  it  would  amount  to,  such  a  piece  of 
injustice  would  not  be  faulty  or  vicious  at  all,  because  it  would 
be  no  more  than,  in  any  other  case,  for  a  man  to  prefer  his 
own  satisfaction  to  another's  in  equal  degrees.    The  fact,  then, 
appears  to  be,  that  we  are  constituted  so  as  to  condemn  false- 
hood, unprovoked  violence,  injustice,  and  to  approve  of  be- 
nevolence to  some,  preferably  to  others,  abstracted  from  all 
consideration  which  conduct  is  likeliest  to  produce  an  over- 
balance of  happiness  or  misery.    And  therefore,  were  the 
Author  of  nature   to  propose  nothing  to  himself  as  an  end 
but  the  production  of  happiness — were  his  moral  character 


SPECULATIVE  MORALS.  91 

merely  that  of  benevolence  ;  yet  ours  is  not  so.  Upon  that 
supposition,  indeed,  the  only  reason  of  his  giving  us  the 
above-mentioned  approbation  of  benevolence  to  some  persons 
rather  than  others,  and  disapprobation  of  falsehood,  unpro- 
voked violence,  and  injustice,  must  be,  that  he  foresaw  this 
constitution  of  our  nature  would  produce  more  happiness  than 
forming  us  with  a  temper  of  mere  general  benevolence.  But 
still,  since  this  is  our  constitution,  falsehood,  violence,  injus- 
tice, must  be  vice  in  us,  and  benevolence  to  some  preferably 
to  others,  virtue,  abstracted  from  all  consideration  of  the  over- 
balance of  evil  or  good  which  they  may  appear  likely  to  pro- 
duce. 

ISTow,  if  human  creatures  are  endued  with  such  a  moral 
nature  as  we  have  been  explaining,  or  with  a  moral  faculty, 
the  natural  object  of  which  is  actions ;  moral  government 
must  consist  in  rendering  them  happy  and  unhappy,  in  reward- 
ing and  punishing  them,  as  they  follow,  neglect,  or  depart 
from  the  moral  rule  of  action  interwoven  in  their  nature,  or 
suggested  and  enforced  by  this  moral  faculty  ;  in  rewarding 
and  punishing  them  upon  account  of  their  so  doing. 

I  am  not  sensible  that  I  have,  in  this  fifth  observation,  con- 
tradicted what  any  author  designed  to  assert.  But  some  of 
great  and  distinguished  merit  have,  I  think,  expressed  them- 
selves in  a  manner  which  may  occasion  some  danger  to  care- 
less readers,  of  imagining  the  whole  of  virtue  to  consist  in 
singly  aiming,  according  to  the  best  of  their  judgment,  at 
promoting  the  happiness  of  mankind  in  the  present  state ; 
and  the  whole  of  vice,  in  doing  what  they  foresee,  or  might 
foresee,  is  likely  to  produce  an  overbalance  of  unhappiness 
in  it ; — than  which  mistakes  none  can  be  conceived  more  ter- 
rible. For  it  is  certain,  that  some  of  the  most  shocking  in- 
stances of  injustice,  adultery,  murder,  perjury,  and  even  of 
persecution,  may,  in  many  supposable  cases,  not  have  the 
appearance  of  being  likely  to  produce  an  overbalance  of  mis- 


92  SPECULATIVE  MORALS. 

ery  in  the  present  state ;  perhaps  sometimes  may  have  the 
contrary  appearance.  For  this  reflection  might  easily  be  car- 
ried on  ;  but  I  forbear The  happiness  of  the  world  is  the 

concern  of  him  who  is  the  Lord  and  the  Proprietor  of  it ; 
nor  do  we  know  what  we  are  about,  when  we  endeavor  to  pro- 
mote the  good  of  mankind  in  any  ways  but  those  which  he 
has  directed  ;  that  is,  indeed,  in  all  ways  not  contrary  to  ve- 
racity and  justice.  I  speak  thus  upon  supposition  of  persons 
really  endeavoring,  in  some  sort,  to  do  good  without  regard 
to  these.  But  the  truth  seems  to  be,  that  such  supposed  en- 
deavors proceed  almost  always  from  ambition,  the  spirit  of 
party,  or  some  indirect  principle,  concealed  perhaps  in  great 
measure  from  persons  themselves.  And.  though  it  is  our 
business  and  our  duty  to  endeavor,  within  the  bounds  of  ve- 
racity and  justice,  to  contribute  to  the  ease,  convenience,  and 
even  cheerfulness  and  diversion  of  our  fellow-creatures  ;  yet, 
from  our  short  views,  it  is  greatly  uncertain  whether  this  en- 
deavor will,  in  particular  instances,  produce  an  overbalance 
of  happiness  upon  the  whole  ;  since  so  many  and  distant 
things  must  come  into  the  account.  And  that  which  makes 
it  our  duty  is,  that  there  is  some  appearance  that  it  will,  and 
no  positive  appearance  sufficient  to  balance  this  on  the  con- 
trary side  ;  and  also,  that  such  benevolent  endeavor  is  a  cul- 
tivation of  that  most  excellent  of  all  virtuous  principles,  the 
active  principle  of  benevolence*  Butler's  Works,  p.  270. 


1/NIVERSITY 

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